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TWO ESSAYS. 



ON 



THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL, 



AM) 



ON DUELLING. 



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CHARLES HAY CAMERON, ESQ. 



[NOT FOR PUBLICATION.] 



MDCCCXXXV. 



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' 53 » 



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LONDON: 

1 COT SON AND I'AIMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREKT, STRAND. 



PREFACE. 



Being about to leave England for India, I am 
requested by a few intimate friends to print, for 
distribution among them and such others as feel 
an interest both in the subject and the writer, 
the following Essay on the Sublime and Beauti- 
ful, which I wrote many years ago ; and to re- 
print, for the same purpose, my article *on Du- 
elling, from the seventh number of " The 
Westminster Review." I have obtained per- 
mission of the Editor to comply with the latter 
part of this request. 

C. H. C. 

February , 1835. 



AN ESSAY 



SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL 



There are various States of the human mind, 
both moral and intellectual, which, when we re- 
flect upon them, excite in us the peculiar Emo- 
tions called the Emotions of Sublimity and Beauty. 
The States of mind which excite the emotions of 
sublimity and beauty, are called, in that respect, 
Sublime and Beautiful. 

Thus the unconquerable fortitude of the chained 
and tortured Prometheus, excites in the minds of 
those who reflect upon it the Emotion of Subli- 
mity, and is of itself, in that respect, denomi- 
nated Sublime. 

The tender remembrance of his distant coun- 



2 

try, which filled the mind of Antor, as he lay 
expiring amid the tumult of conflicting armies, 

" Dulces moriens reminiscitar Argos," 
excites in like manner the Emotion of Beauty, 
and receives on that account the epithet of 
Beautiful. 

But a thunder-storm is also Sublime, and the 
dawn of a summer's day is also Beautiful. 

How does it happen that these states of Exter- 
nal Nature are described by the same epithets as 
those states of the Human Mind ? or, (which is the 
same question viewed in another aspect,) how 
does it happen that these states of External Na- 
ture affect the minds which contemplate them, in 
the same way as those states of the Human 
Mind? 

It will be found that certain states of external 
nature excite in the minds which contemplate 
them the emotions of sublimity and beauty, and 
are called sublime and beautiful, because they are 
associated in various ways with sublime and 
beautiful states of the human mind. 

Many glimpses of this truth were seen by 
Plato and his followers. Dr. Hutcheson had a 
very vivid, but not a very distinct perception of 
it. His perception of it was not sufficiently 
distinct to show him that it pervades the whole 
subject. 

Mr. Alison, and after him the author of the 
article " Beauty," in the Supplement to the En- 



cyclopaedia Britannica, first perceived that the 
association I have indicated explains all the cases 
in which the emotions of sublimity and beauty 
are excited by external objects. But the first of 
these distinguished writers supposes, incorrectly, 
as I think, that the emotions of sublimity and 
beauty are consequent only upon certain trains 
of ideas; and the second seems to have supposed 
that the emotions of sublimity and beauty are 
never excited except when the association I 
have indicated is established, neither of the ele- 
ments of the association being, according to him, 
sufficient to produce that effect. 

Both writers seem to me to have thus thrown 
upon their respective expositions a mist which 
their great ingenuity and power of illustration 
have been insufficient to dispel. 

In this Essay I shall first point out that we 
are not affected by the sublimity and beauty of 
states of mind, nor by that borrowed sublimity 
and beauty which is attributed to external ob- 
jects, unless we exert the faculty of Reflection. 
Men are affected by the greenness or smoothness 
of an external object, when it is merely exhibited 
to their senses; they are not affected by the 
sublimity and beauty of external objects, nor of 
states of mind, unless they reflect upon them. 

Having pointed out the necessity of reflection, 
I shall proceed to examine and classify the va- 
rious ways in which External Objects borrow 

b °2 



the sublimity and beauty which are the proper 
attributes of States of Mind. I shall then ex- 
amine " external objects" in so far as they are 
invested with this borrowed sublimity and beauty, 
with reference to the different senses by which 
they are perceived ; and conclude by pointing 
out more particularly the difference between my 
view of the subject and that exhibited by Mr. 
Alison and the author of the article " Beauty," 
in The Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



Any of those feelings which are to me the ex- 
citing causes of sublimity and beauty, may be 
feelings either of myself or of some other person ; 
but in neither case can the sublimity or beauty 
of those feelings be perceived by me, unless I 
exert that faculty which is called Reflection, and 
by which we attend to and examine our own 
mental operations. 

The necessity of Reflection is sufficiently ob- 
vious in the first case. In order to apprehend the 
qualities of a state of my own mind, it is neces- 
sary for me to reflect upon it, just as, in order 
to apprehend the qualities of a visible object, it is 
necessary to look at it. But in the second case, 
it might be supposed at first sight, by those not 
conversant with psychological inquiries, that a 
feeling in the mind of another man may be the 
direct object of contemplation ; but as it is only 
by means of our senses that we are able to hold 



any communication with other minds, and as 
courage, pity, love, &c. are certainly not objects 
of sense, it follows that all we perceive is the 
external symptoms of those feelings, and that 
when we are said to contemplate the courage or 
pity of another man, the real object of our 
thoughts is an image of those feelings in our 
own minds, which we can only attend to and ex- 
amine by means of an act of Reflection. 

The mere presence, then, of Sublime or Beau- 
tiful feelings in the mind is not of itself sufficient 
to ensure the perception of their sublimity and 
beauty; for, unless the power of reflection is 
exerted, there can be no such perception. 
Accordingly, children in whom the power of re- 
flection is yet undeveloped, and that large portion 
of mankind in whose minds the exercise of that 
power is prevented by the constant importunity 
of physical wants, or by the troublesome and 
painful exertions by which alone they can satisfy 
such wants, derive scarcely any of that enjoyment 
which Sublime and Beautiful feelings, even when 
they are in other respects of a painful kind, im- 
part to those who have both leisure and inclina- 
tion to turn their attention inwards. And 
persons even in this latter predicament, so long 
as any violent passion is raging within them, 
are rendered incapable of exerting their power 
of reflection, and accordingly those very passions 
which, in a certain state of moderation, produce 



the emotions of sublimity and beauty, such as 
love, pity, grief, indignation, effectually exclude 
those emotions from the mind so long as they fill 
it with tumult and agitation. 

When Sublime or Beautiful feelings are not of 
a violent character, nothing prevents the person 
affected by them from perceiving and delineating 
their sublimity and beauty. The discontent which 
Rasselas felt with all the comforts and luxuries of 
the happy valley was a feeling of this description; 
and Dr. Johnson has therefore represented him, 
with great propriety, as uttering his observations 
" with a plaintive voice, yet with a look that disco- 
vered him to feel some complacence in his own 
perspicacity, and to receive some solace of the 
miseries of life from consciousness of the delicacy 
with which he felt, and the eloquence with which 
he bewailed them." 

A more lofty example, and one which is not fic- 
titious, may be found at the beginning of the third 
book of " Paradise Lost," where Milton, survey- 
ing his own mind with perfect calmness, has ex- 
pressed and illustrated with all the resources of 
poetry the sublime resignation with which he 
endured the calamity of blindness, and the se- 
raphic visions with which he could cheer the 
darkness that encompassed him. 

When sublime or beautiful feelings have been, 
originally, of a violent character, but the agitation 
they hare created has subsided and given place 



to a state of mind resembling the emotion that 
preceded it in every thing but its turbulence, the 
act of reflection may then be performed. That 
most graceful sentiment — " Heu quanto minus 
cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse" — is 
evidently the production of a mind in sorrow, but 
in that tranquil stage of sorrow which permits the 
attention to be withdrawn from the calamity 
which is the cause, and directed to the feeling 
which is the effect. The impropriety of such an 
expression, if put into the mouth of one in the 
first paroxysms of grief, would be manifest to the 
most inexperienced critic. Sighs and tears and 
inarticulate exclamations are the characteristics 
of such a condition. When these have in some 
degree allayed the tumult of the mourner's feel- 
ings, he indulges himself by dwelling upon and 
exaggerating the merits of the friend he has lost, 
and by reproaching himself with some real or 
supposed neglect of a person to whom he owed 
so much ; but it is not until the calm which suc- 
ceeds the tempest of passion has taken possession 
of his soul, that he ever thinks of making reflec- 
tions upon his own sorrow. 

I have stated that, when we are said to con- 
template the courage, pity, &c, of another, the 
real object of our thoughts is an image of those 
feelings in our own minds : but it is important to 
remark, that this image is frequently so modified 
by circumstances which operate upon our minds, 



8 

and which did not operate upon the mind of that 
other, that the difference between our feelings 
and his becomes more remarkable than their re- 
semblance ; and in some cases we do not contem- 
plate any image of what we suppose to be passing 
in his mind, but, on the contrary, an image of 
feelings of which we believe him to be wholly 
unconscious. Thus, when we see a person un- 
aware of some great calamity which has befallen 
him, the peculiar interest of his situation arises 
from his not being affected by those emotions 
which would affect him if he knew the truth. 

The address of Danae to her infant affords a 
very striking specimen of this sort of beauty. 

^Qi TEKOQ, 

Otov E^to ttovov' crv <T dutreig, yaXaQ-qvio r 
' Hropi KP(Offffetg ev aTepTrei SwfiaTi, 

XaXtceoyd jj.(f)u) ^e, vvKTi\afX7rei, 

Kvaveu) re Ivotyip. Tv & avaXiav 
"Y7r£p0£ redv KOfxav fiadeiav 

YiapiovroQ icv/xarog ovk dXeyeig, 

Ov(? dve/jiov tydoyyiov. 

The sublimity of Lucretius's account of the 
gods in the Epicurean theology is of the same 
sort, — 

Omnis enim per se Divom natura necesse *st 
Immortali eevo summa cum pace fvuatur, 
Semota a nostris rebus sejunctaque longe ; 
Nam private dolor omni, privata periclis, 
Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri, 
Nee bene promeritis capitur, nee tangitur ira. 



The object of our contemplation here is not 
what the gods feel, but what they do not feel. 

Homer puts forth all his prodigious energy in 
bringing before us the furious contention of Hec- 
tor and Patroclus and their followers, for the 
dead body of Cebriones, and then, by the rapid 
and eminently sublime touch with which the 
passage concludes, he at once converts all that 
has gone before into a vivid description of the 
unconscious condition of the fallen warrior. 

'Gig <)' Evjoo'c re NoVoe r ipidalvsTOV dXXrjXouv 
Ovpeog ev firicrorjiQ fiaderjv 7r£\£fii^Efiep vXrjv, 
Qr\y6v te, [XtXlrjv re, ravvtyXoLOv te KpdvEtav, 
At te irpog dXXrjXag efiaXov ravvrjiceag o£ovg 
'H^/ji OeaTreairi, iraTayog M te dyvvfiEvdwv' 

"QiQ TpUEQ KCU 'A)(CUOt ETT dXXrjXoiCTl QopOVTEQ 

Arjovv, ovd' ETEpoL fivioovr oXooio 0o'/3oto. 
IloWa Se KEfjpiovrjv dyicp o^ia oovpa wETrrjyEi, 

'lot TE TTTEpOEVTEQ C17TO VEVpfj(f)t BopOVTEQ' 

IloWa cV ^Epfid^ia [XEydX' dmti^ag iffTvcpiXi^E 
MappajjLEVU)y aji^> avYoV 6 <? iv ffrpotydXiyyi Kovirjg 
Kelto fXEyae, fjiEyaXojarl, XEXaa/xtvog 'nnroavvdiov. 

Since by far the greater number of the sublime 
and beautiful emotions we experience in the 
course of our lives, are suggested to us by the 
effect of some external object upon the organs of 
our senses, it becomes of importance to examine 
and to classify the various ways in which this 
may take place. In other words, to examine and 
classify sensible objects, considered as the Signs 
of sublime and beautiful emotions. 



10 

Sensible Objects considered as the Signs of 
sublime or beautiful emotions, may be divided 
into three classes, as follow :— 

Conventional Signs— Casual Signs — Signs nei- 
ther casual nor conventional, which may be called 
Natural Signs. 

This last class, which I shall examine first, and 
therefore designate by the No. 1, may admit of 
five subdivisions, thus : — 

1. Sensible objects which are the effects of 
Sublime or Beautiful feelings. 

C Z. Sensible objects which resemble or are ana- 
logous to those last mentioned. 

3. Sensible objects which are the causes of 
Sublime and Beautiful feelings 

4. Sensible objects which resemble or are ana- 
logous to those last mentioned. 

5. Sensible objects which resemble, or are ana- 
logous to Sublime and Beautiful feelings. 

CLASS L-NATURAL SIGNS. 

Subdivision I — Sensible Objects which are 
the Effects of Sublime or Beautiful 
Feelings. 

There is, perhaps, no violent emotion to whicli 
the human constitution is subject, that does not ex- 
hibit itself to the eye or the ear of the by-standers, 
by the effects which it produces on the body. 

The inflamed countenance, the glaring eye, 
the harsh and violent gestures, the strained and 



11 

discordant voice of anger; — the relaxed and 
drooping form, the tearful eye and low note of 
sorrow, are known universally and recognised im- 
mediately. If, having seen persons in these con- 
ditions, we wished to inform another what we 
had seen, we should naturally say, I have seen 
a man in violent anger, I have seen a wo- 
man in profound grief. We should not think it 
necessary to enumerate the various signs from 
which we had inferred the existence of those 
mental states. 

If the anger thus indicated be sublime, we 
call the countenance, and tone and gestures 
which indicate it, sublime. If the sorrow be 
beautiful, we call the attitude and voice which 
make its existence known to us, beautiful ; but in 
doing so, we use the terms " sublime" and " beau- 
tiful" not literally but figuratively, just as we call 
the gestures of the man, angry gestures, the at- 
titude of the woman, a mournful attitude. 

These effects are transient and last but a very 
short time after their causes have ceased to 
operate, but there are others of a more enduring 
character, which constitute the materials of ra- 
tional physiognomy. In the opinion of many 
our minds produce no such lasting effects upon 
our bodies, and the appearances I speak of ought, 
according to them, to be classed, not among 
effects, but among some other species of the signs 
of feelings. I think, however, that it is not dif- 



12 

ficult to explain according to acknowledged prin- 
ciples how such effects may be produced. There 
is no physiological fact more certain than that 
our muscles when they are frequently exerted, 
increase in bulk, and, as the increase is always in 
breadth and depth only, and never in length, 
they, at the same time, necessarily lose their ori- 
ginal shape and assume one more prominent and 
remarkable. Now, as many states of our minds, 
such as fear, anger, mirth, grief, profound 
thought, &c. occasion the exertion of particular 
sets of muscles, it must inevitably happen that 
the face of a man whose mind is very frequently 
in one of those states, should acquire that per- 
manent character which is the effect, and there- 
fore the sign, of it. The face of Mr. Watt, if I 
may judge of it from Chantry's admirable statue, 
was a very striking example of this species of 
sign. 

Besides those effects which the mind of man 
produces upon his body, and which only endure 
at farthest so long as the vital principle keeps to- 
gether the elements which compose that body, 
we are surrounded on every side by the perma- 
nent impressions which his genius and passions 
have left upon the material world. 

We see much larger masses of matter than the 
Egyptian pyramids ; considered as mountains, 
they would be insignificant. But when we read 
in them a description, as it were, of the perse- 



13 

vering and prodigious labours of those early 
builders, of the power and magnificence of those 
deified kings, who 

" With monstrous shapes and sorceries ahused 
Fanatic Egypt," 

and whose forms and movements we obscurely 
discern in the uncertain dawn of history ; — when 
we read all this in those most wonderful monu- 
ments, we experience an emotion, vague indeed 
rom the variety of its causes and the conse- 
quent wandering of the attention, but sublime 
in the very highest degree. 

Nor have the destructive energies of the hu- 
man mind failed to leave traces as deep and as 
interesting on the objects of sense. It would be 
difficult to point out a finer passage in any poem 
than the following, from the Georgics, — 

Scilicet et tempus veniet quum, finibns illis, 
Agricola, incurvo terrain molitus aratro, 
Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila, 
Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes, 
Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris. 

The two examples I have just adduced agree 
in that circumstance which induced me to ar- 
range them under the same head, but they differ 
in another circumstance of considerable import- 
ance. The Egyptian monarchs, undoubtedly, in- 
tended the Pyramids to excite the wonder of 
mankind, but the hostile factions who contended 



14 

at Pharsalia and Philippi did not engage in mu- 
tual slaughter with any wish or intention that 
their rusted armour and whitened bones should 
become sources of sublimity to a remote poste- 
rity. 

It will be seen from what follows, that the dis- 
tinction between these two examples, the distinc- 
tion, that is, between those effects of human 
feelings which are called works of art, and those 
which are not works of art, is essential to a clear 
comprehension of the subject. 

A work of art brings to our minds the feel- 
ings and passions of men in two different ways, 
which will be best understood by an example. 
The picture of Ugolino, by Reynolds, brings to 
our minds the feelings of Ugolino and his chil- 
dren, and is, on that account, extremely sub- 
lime ; but it also brings to our minds the genius 
and skill of Reynolds, of which it is the effect, 
and that genius and skill are, themselves, states 
or habits of mind which excite the emotions of 
sublimity and beauty. 

Now it is, in respect of this latter circum- 
stance, that works of art, as such, fall under the 
class and subdivision I am now considering. The 
artist may, for the furtherance of his purpose, 
make use of various sorts of signs, and he may 
also confine himself to one or more sorts, reject- 
ing the rest ; but it is not in his power to pre- 
vent his work from being a sign of the particu- 



15 



lar kind I am now discussing ; namely, a sign 
suggesting those qualities of his own mind of 
which it is the effect. Therefore, though works 
of art may be given as examples, under any 
of the heads to which the signs used by the ar- 
tist happen to be referable, this is the proper 
place in which to treat of works of art as such. 

The circumstance that works of art suggest 
those mental qualities which invented and ar- 
ranged them, causes us to judge of their effect by 
very different criteria from those which guide our 
decisions upon the Sublime and Beautiful in nature. 

Perhaps the most beautiful object in nature is 
a beautiful human figure, although to every human 
figure belong disagreeable and humiliating inci- 
dents. But if an artist should venture to intro- 
duce any of these incidents in a work intended to 
excite sublime or beautiful emotions, the pleasure 
we might have derived from such parts of his 
work as were well adapted to the end in view 
would be, perhaps, totally destroyed by reflections 
upon the coarseness and indelicacy of that mind 
which could 'designedly unite such hateful incon- 
gruities ; at any rate, would be much more im- 
paired than the pleasure arising from a similar 
sublime or beautiful object in nature would be by 
the unfortunate presence of similar incongruities. 

I have seen a painting of the Storm on the 
Lake of Gennesaret, said to be by Rembrandt, in 
which there is a man vomiting over the side of 



16 

the vessel. Nothing certainly can be more na- 
tural ; it is what would almost certainly happen 
under the supposed circumstances; yet this forms 
no sort of justification to the painter for intro- 
ducing into a picture, intended to produce a sub- 
lime effect, an incident counteracting that effect, 
which it was completely at his option to omit, 
and therefore does not prevent his work from 
partaking of that grossness and vulgarity which 
must have characterised his mind. 

It is true that a poet of the highest genius, and 
whose style is distinguished for its gravity, has 
not hesitated to bring together incongruities 
still more shocking. I allude to what Lucretius 
says of women in his fourth Book ; but it was his 
express object to destroy, if possible, the effect of 
that beauty which, as a philosopher, he thought 
pernicious, by polluting it with odious associations. 
Therefore, when we read the passage, we draw 
no inference against the taste of Lucretius ; we 
see plainly that he is in the condition of a man 
making a great sacrifice of his feelings for the at- 
tainment of an object which he considered of 
greater importance. 

Even where two ideas are both sublime or 
beautiful, yet if they are of such opposite charac- 
ters as to counteract the effect of each other, they 
ought not to be brought together by an artist, 
though they may be found together in nature. 
The effect resulting from the neglect of this rule 



17 

may be well illustrated by comparing Homer's 
famous simile — 

*£lg <$' or ev ovpavu darpa <j)aet.vr)V djx<p\ aekqvr\v 
fairer dpnrpeTrea, ore r gVAero vrjve/JLOQ aldrjp, 
' Efc t kcfxxvov irdaai c/co7rtcu, kcu 7rpiooveg atcpoi, 
Kal vdirai' ovpavodev c)' dp vireppdyr) daireroQ alQrjp, 
Hdvra (He r eiderai darpa' yeyrjde he re (ppeva 7roifj,r}^. 

with Pope's translation of it : 

" As when the moon — refulgent lamp of night — 
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, 
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, 
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene, 
Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole, 
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, 
And tip with silver every mountain's head, — 
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, 
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies, 
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, 
Eye the blue vault and bless the useful light." 

Mr. Wordsworth, I believe, first remarked that 
Pope's translation is neither like Homer nor na- 
ture, but without pointing out the particular de- 
fects to which he alludes. The fault seems to me to 
consist in the way in which Pope has destroyed 
that expression of deep and undisturbed tranquil- 
lity — which is so remarkable in a moonlight scene 
as Nature presents it, and as Homer has copied it — 
by covering it with one unmitigated blaze of splen- 
dour, and introducing into it the idea of whirling 
motion. The first is not in nature at all — it is 



18 

an exaggeration, not heightening, but counteract- 
ing the real expression of the prospect. The last 
is indeed in nature, but it is not presented by 
nature to the senses ; if it were, the scene would 
have a very different character from what it now 
has, and a representation of it would no longer be 
a proper means of soothing the mind into a mood 
of profound repose. Pope had no occasion to 
advert to the motion of the planets, and if he 
chose to do so, he should at least have studied to 
reconcile rapidity with rest, as Milton has done 
so exquisitely in the analogous case of the earth's 
motion : 

" Or she from west her silent course advance 
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps 
On her soft axle." 

Again, in works of art we are not satisfied 
unless we perceive a constant attention to method 
and design. Even in music, the least intellectual 
of all the fine arts, whose office it is to excite and 
soothe the passions, to throw the mind into all the 
various moods of which it is susceptible, without 
calling upon the imagination to set forth distinct 
ideas, or upon the understanding to attend to 
their relations, we nevertheless require the traces 
of a presiding and directing intellect; — we require 
that a purpose, and a selection of means contri- 
buting to that purpose, should be discoverable by 
those who search for them, not for their own sake 
indeed, but because no powerful and sustain- 



19 

ed effect can be produced without them. If the 
product of an Eolian harp were noted and offered 
to us as a work of art, it would be received w T ith 
deserved contempt, though we might be pleased 
with the very same succession of sounds con- 
sidered as the effect of wandering and unconscious 
breezes. 

In the more intellectual arts, — and especially 
in poetry, the most intellectual, — it is essential 
that the elements of which it consists should be so 
arranged as constantly to present a distinct mean- 
ing, which meaning is the expression of learning, 
ingenuity, profundity, &c. in the mind of the 
author. The object of every poem, as such, like 
that of every musical composition, is the produc- 
tion of sublimity and beauty; but every poem 
must contain throughout a train of thought ad- 
dressed to the understanding, and separable from 
those characteristics which constitute it a poem. 
Thus, the epic poem contains the narration of a 
story, the drama the representation of a story, 
the didactic poem contains the explanation of a 
system, the ode contains the description of various 
objects of the moral or natural world, things 
which may all be separated from the poetry in 
which they are involved, and presented to the 
understanding alone. Nevertheless, the presen- 
tation of these various combinations to the under- 
standing is not the end of any poem as such, 

c 2 



20 

though it is certainly the end of many composi- 
tions to which it is impossible to deny the name 
of poem. We cannot indeed suppose that Virgil 
wrote his Georgics for the purpose of teaching 
husbandry ; we should rather say that he taught 
husbandry for the purpose of producing poetical 
delight. But I see no reason for refusing credit 
to the professions with which Lucretius opens his 
fourth Book, that his purpose was to teach the 
doctrines of the Epicurean philosophy, and that 
his poetry was but the honey with which he 
tempted his friend to swallow the wholesome 
but bitter draught of instruction. I have already 
alluded to a passage in the same book, where he 
gives a striking proof that these professions are 
sincere. 

A mere assemblage of images connected by no 
thread of meaning, although every image should be 
both beautiful and, as far as beauty is concerned, 
in harmony with all the other images of the as- 
semblage, can never receive much admiration con- 
sidered as a work of art. Considered however as 
a work of nature, it might receive a. very consi- 
derable degree of admiration. In Europe a 
nosegay is a work of nature, in Arabia it is said 
to be frequently a work of art, flowers being 
used as conventional signs by which a poem or 
other composition may be expressed. The same 
unmeaning collection of flowers, then, which 



21 

would be justly thought beautiful by an European 
lady, might excite disappointment or contempt 
in the mind of an Arabian lady who expected to 
find a sonnet couched in it. 

It is true that no one who has merely tied up 
a bundle of flowers would be foolish enough to 
assume the merit of having produced a work of 
art, but there are some literary compositions 
which, whatever may be the beauty of the separate 
images they contain, present nothing that can 
satisfy the understanding, and consequently fail 
to produce that continuous and sustained effect 
upon the imagination and the heart which can 
only be produced through the medium of the 
understanding. In the poems called Ossian's are 
assembled (no matter from what quarters) all 
the most sublime and beautiful emotions of which 
our nature is susceptible, and all the sensible 
objects which most copiously and vividly re- 
flect such emotions ; but out of these materials 
the author has constructed manners, characters, 
events, and a form of society not only such as 
never can, consistently with experience, have 
existed, but such as no hypothesis can reconcile 
with each other. 

What has been just said furnishes, I apprehend, 
the explanation of that boundless admiration and 
that boundless contempt which have been lavished 
upon these poems. The young and inexperienced 
have been struck by the beauty of the images, 



22 



while those of mature judgment have been dis- 
gusted by the want of every other excellence. Ma- 
dame de Stael is the only person of distinguished 
genius, as far as I recollect, who has spoken highly 
of these compositions; and whoever has read her 
" L'Allemagne" must know that she had a pecu- 
liar and enthusiastic admiration for every thing 
that is at once beautiful and without apparent 
purpose. 

A work of art should in no case suggest the 
idea of such mental qualities in its author, as are 
the natural objects of aversion or contempt. 
Neither should it excite even the ideas of 
genius, judgment, and learning, in such a way as to 
interfere with the professed object of the work, 
if it have any object different from the mere dis- 
play of the author's talents. I have already said 
that an artist cannot prevent his work from being 
the sign of those qualities in his mind which 
gave birth to it; but when he has produced ex- 
cellence of a high order, those qualities do not 
force themselves upon our attention. We all 
read the finest parts of Homer or Shakspeare, 
without thinking of Homer or Shakspeare them- 
selves, and what we principally admire when we 
do come to think of them, is that magical genius 
whose presence we overlooked amid the engross- 
ing interest excited by its own creations. 

There are however sonic mental qualities which 
may be employed in producing works of art, whose 



23 

property it is to attract attention to themselves, 
because their effects have no other beauty than 
what they derive from being* the signs of their 
causes. Such are all those qualities productive 
of that pleasure which the French critics call 
" Le plaisir de la difficulte vaincue." 

When one thing* is made to resemble another, 
we undoubtedly derive some pleasure from the 
perception of it, if we apprehend the difficulty of 
bringing it into that condition to be considerable, 
and believe, consequently, that considerable skill 
has been exerted by the artist who has overcome 
that difficulty. Adam Smith has remarked in 
his Essay on the imitative arts, that we admire 
the representation of many things in a painting*, of 
which we should not at all admire the representa- 
tion in sculpture, and this he very justly ascribes to 
the greater difficulty of imitating the relief of solid 
objects upon a flat surface, compared with that of 
imitating one solid object by another solid object. 
I am speaking now of the imitation of such ob- 
jects as are not themselves the signs of any Sub- 
lime or Beautiful quality of mind, — in popular 
language such objects as are not themselves sub- 
lime or beautiful, — the representations of which 
can be no otherwise sublime or beautiful than as 
they are the signs of the skill which produced them, 
such (for instance) as the handle of a door, of 
which I have somewhere seen an imitation in paint- 
ing so perfect as, at first sight, to deceive the eye. 



24 

Now the introduction of such an imitation into a 
picture intended to excite powerful emotions, — or 
even the application of that sort of skill which 
constitutes the beauty of such an object, — to the 
delineation, in such a picture, of an object possess- 
ing beauty of a different order, would be a very 
considerable defect, because it would draw off the 
attention from the true object of the picture, and, 
by so doing, would also indicate that the artist was 
deficient in a sort of skill much nobler and more 
intellectual than that which he had injudiciously 
displayed. No man of taste can endure that his 
reflections upon the death of Cleopatra should 
be interrupted by the obtrusive accuracy with 
which the velvet or satin of her dress is depict- 
ed. The artist, therefore, who wishes to show 
how well he can represent satin and velvet with 
his pencil, should paint a silk mercer's window, 
but not a dying queen. For so doing he will 
have the high authority of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

What I have been saying leads me naturally to 
consider the subject of what has been called " illu- 
sion" in the fine arts, under which name things 
most disparate have been confounded together. 
We are told of the illusion produced by the 
painted handle of a door, and the illusion pro- 
duced by the representation of a tragedy. 

In the first place, the spectator of the painted 
door-handle can experience no pleasure till the 
illusion is dissipated ; the spectator of a tragedy 



Z5 

enjoys his pleasure in the greatest perfection, 
while the illusion, if it must be so called, subsists. 
But secondly, the illusion in the first case is so in 
the strict sense of the word, it consists in mis- 
taking one thing for another ; whereas the only 
illusion which we have the power to produce in 
the second case, — and the only illusion which 
would be worth producing whatever might be in 
our power, — consists in keeping the attention of 
the spectator rivetted exclusively upon the pas- 
sions of which the language and gestures exhi- 
bited to the senses are the signs. Now, if this 
be illusion, then are we also illuded when we see 
a display of interesting feelings in real life. If 
the mind of a man, who actually heard Cardinal 
Wolsey lamenting the loss of his power, were 
occupied in considering whether the man whose 
complaints he heard were really Wolsey, — whe- 
ther the place in which they were uttered were 
really King Henry's palace, — and in deciding 
that these things respectively were, in fact, what 
they at first sight appeared to be, — the situation 
of that man, as far as tragic interest is concerned, 
would not differ at all from the situation of a 
man who, after a like consideration, should come 
to the conclusion, that Mr. Kean and Drury 
Lane were the real objects presented to his 
senses. So that the same sort of illusion which 
is necessary to affect us with the exhibition of 
human passions on the stage, is also necessary to 



26 



affect us with the exhibition of them in real life. 
The only difference is, that the desired illusion 
is much less completely produced in a theatrical 
representation, and this arises from two causes. 
First, from the real difficulty of preventing* 
the intrusion of our knowledge, that what 
we see is an artificial representation; and 
secondly, from the very means which we employ 
to produce illusion of another kind. What an ad- 
mirable view of Rome! What classical accuracy of 
costume ! Such are the remarks which irresistibly 
force themselves upon the attention of the au- 
dience, when it should be wholly engrossed by 
the eloquence of Anthony, or the vehement con- 
tention of Brutus and Cassius. 

I am perfectly aware, however, that a great 
part of this defect cannot be obviated by any means 
in our power. To dress Roman senators in the 
habit of the day, as our ancestors did, would be 
far more destructive of the true tragic enjoyment 
by its hideous incongruity, than the present prac- 
tice is by its beauty and elaborate propriety. In 
selecting the scenery we are not however reduced 
to this dilemma. The difference between the 
costume of ancient Rome and that of modern Eu- 
rope is absolutely irreconcileable, and no me- 
dium can be conceived which should not attract 
attention either by its obtrusive aptitude or its 
flagrant impropriety ; but the decorations of 
places in the ancient and modern world are by no 



s>7 

means so dissimilar. A few unobtrusive trees or 
a few unobtrusive columns, are neither peculiarly 
Roman nor peculiarly English, and if no scene- 
shifter insists upon our noticing- them by thrust- 
ing off one set and thrusting on another, they 
may stand before our eyes through the five acts 
of a tragedy without our being at all conscious 
of their presence, as I have myself experienced 
at the Theatre Francais. 

I am by no means affecting to despise the 
pleasure derived from the exhibition of beautiful 
scenery or of beautiful spectacle in general ; I 
am only contending that it is not consistent with 
the full enjoyment of that more refined pleasure 
which it is the proper object of tragedy to ex- 
cite, and that it ought therefore to be confined 
to its own province, the melo-drame. 

The general result of what has been said with 
regard to the fine arts is, that the artist should 
state to himself, distinctly, the sort of pleasure 
he means to produce, and should resolutely ex- 
clude every thing which interferes with it. 

Subdivision II. — Sensible Objects which re- 
semble or are analogous to those last 
mentioned. 

There are m,any objects both of art and na- 
ture which exhibit appearances reminding us of 
the feelings of sentient beings by the likeness 



<28 

which those appearances bear to the real effects 
of such feelings. 

A torrent imitates the fury of a rabid ani- 
mal by the violence and angular abruptness of 
its motions, by the corresponding abruptness of 
the sounds it utters, and by the foam which it 
scatters around. So strongly do these qualities 
of the inanimate object express passion, that in 
all languages the epithets corresponding to " fu- 
rious, indignant, raging," &c. are without scru- 
ple applied to it, and we cannot therefore won- 
der that an object to which all mankind agree in 
applying such epithets should also be called sub- 
lime. On the contrary, it would be matter of 
great surprise, if an object which so affects our 
minds, as to force us, in a manner, to describe it 
by the epithets proper to sublime passions, should 
not also excite in us the emotion of sublimity. 

A weeping willow, as the very name of the 
species indicates, represents the attitude, and 
therefore partakes of the beauty of sorrow. The 
effect of sorrow on the human frame is to pre- 
vent all muscular exertion, consequently every 
part which in ordinary circumstances is sustain- 
ed by such exertion alone, droops and collapses 
under the influence of that depressing passion. 
Every thing, therefore, which droops (for that 
word seems to express the whole idea of bend- 
ing downwards, without any pressure, from the 
mere effect of gravitation and the want of support) 



29 

has a sorrowful and beautiful expression. Hence 
it is, that the painters when they would fill the 
mind with images of grief, not only dispose the 
heads and limbs of their figures as grief would 
dispose them, but take care that the hair and the 
drapery shall also droop, though it is just as con- 
sistent with probability that they should be flut- 
tering in the wind. The poets make a similar 
use of similar circumstances. When the horse of 
Achilles in Homer prophesies the fate of his 
master, his mane becomes a type of emotion 
proper to the occasion. 

Tov (? ap inro^vyocpiv 7rpoae((>r} TroSag aloXog t-mrog 
Edvdog, a(f)ap (T y]\xvat Kaprjari, 7rdaa Se X aLTr l> 
ZevyXrjg e^epnrovaa napd £vyov, ovfiag 'Uavtv. 

In battle men are agitated and excited ; in a 
battle-piece, therefore, the banners of either army 
stream freely and gallantly upon the gale, 

" Conjurati veniunt ad classica venti." 

In the painting of a funeral they hang in heavy 
folds, and seem to sympathize with the feelings 
of those that mourn. 

To prevent confusion, I must here remark 
that I am not now contrasting one set of the 
signs which a painter employs with another set 
which he employs. What I contrast is one set 
of those signs which a painter imitates with an- 



30 



other set which he imitates. All the signs which 
he employs are likenesses of something, and there- 
fore proper to be given as examples under this 
head ; and so are the productions of all the fine 
arts which imitate sensible objects, in so far as 
they do imitate them. 

I have already taken occasion to point out 
that it is by no means necessary that an imita- 
tion should be mistaken for the thing imitated, 
in order to produce the same moral effect. But 
there are some cases which form apparent ex- 
ceptions to this doctrine, and which it may be as 
well to examine in this place. The illustration 
put by Mr. Alison of the rumbling of a cart 
mistaken for thunder, is a case of this kind ; and 
a hasty generalization of such instances might 
lead to the supposition that signs which have no 
real connexion with sublime or beautiful feel- 
ings, cannot excite the emotions of sublimity and 
beauty, unless they are considered as having a 
real connexion ; in other words, unless they are 
thought to be that which in truth they only re- 
semble. 

That the sublimity belonging to the sound of 
thunder vanishes, when we discover that we have 
mistaken the rumbling of a cart for it, is un- 
questionably true ; but this effect, I think, is 
amply accounted for by the two following con- 
siderations. 

First, our attention is suddenly and forcibly 



31 



drawn to the fact that what we hear is not thun- 
der, and surprise is excited at the previous il- 
lusion. 

Secondly, not only do we discover that what 
we hear is not the voice of conflicting elements, 
but that it is the noise of a very mean and com- 
mon machine. The result of this incongruous 
mixture of the vulgar with the sublime is a sort 
of natural parody, which, if known in the first 
instance to be such, might produce the amuse- 
ment proper to a parody ; but which, not being 
known at first for what it really is, produces the 
same effect which we should experience if we 
took up unknowingly a parody of Homer or 
Milton, and began to read it in that state of 
mind with which we approach the " Iliad," and 
the " Paradise Lost.'' 

Claudian describes the horse of Honorius in 
this gorgeous line : 

" Sanguineo dignus morsu vexare sinaragdos." 

Now the horse of an emperor on the stage 
would be decorated with false emeralds, and the 
spectators know it to be so ; nevertheless the 
effect of splendour is very well kept up by such 
means. But if a poet were to speak of a charger 
worthy to bite glass and green foil, he would 
produce burlesque by drawing attention to the 
vileness of the materials by which imperial pomp 
and magnificence are simulated. 



32 

The very same tones and gestures which, 
when assumed by an actor, excite in the specta- 
tors the tenderest emotions, when assumed by a 
mendicant impostor, for the purpose of abusing 
the natural sympathies of mankind, excite no- 
thing but contempt and indignation. We are 
equally aware in both cases, that the signs of dis- 
tress which we hear and see are not the effects 
of real distress ; but in the latter case we are 
further aware, and being aware cannot for an 
instant forget, that they are the base artifices by 
which treachery and cunning minister to the de- 
mands of selfish and coarse sensuality. 

Subdivision III. — Sensible Objects which 
are the Causes of Sublime or Beautiful 
Feelings. 

All those material objects which are known 
or apprehended to be the causes of Sublime or 
Beautiful feelings, are themselves considered as 
Sublime or Beautiful. 

Before I adduce any example under this head, 
it is necessary to guard against the possibility of 
misapprehension. I am very far from supposing 
that any object of sense can, by its mere organic 
effect upon us, give rise immediately to the emo- 
tions of sublimity or beauty. But it is undoubtedly 
true that some objects of sense are the natural 
causes of various feelings and passions in our 
minds, which give rise to the emotions in 
question. 



33 

The exuberant hilarity and forgetfulness of 
importunate cares which wine inspires, 

" Spes donave novas largus, amaraque 
Curarum eluere efficax," 

have given it a place, among objects of beauty, to 
which it never could have been raised by its 
power of producing the sensual pleasures of the 
palate. Hence its common epithet " generous" 
is expressive of sentiment, and odes and sonnets 
abound with the poetical praises bestowed on it 
by its votaries. 

There are also certain qualities of the human 
figure which naturally excite that very powerful 
emotion, the desire of sexual intercourse. These 
qualities, when unaccompanied by any of the 
other indications of sublime or beautiful feelings, 
constitute that very peculiar species of beauty, 
that KaXXog artp yapiruv, which is found, I think, 
no where but in the human form and countenance, 
and which extorts from men of a refined taste an 
unwilling admiration and reluctant homage. 

The sense of danger, by which I do not mean 
the passion of fear, is a very sublime emotion, 
and it is caused by a great multitude of sensible 
objects ; for sensible objects exercise a power 
over our bodies very different from that by 
which in ordinary cases they stimulate the organs 
of sense, leaving those organs, when the stimu- 
lus is past, uninjured and fit to perform the 

D 



34 

same function again, when the same occasion 
recurs. Our vision may be blasted by intense 
light, our hearing by insufferable noise ; we may 
be poisoned by deleterious drugs, and suffocated 
by the stench of mephitic vapours; finally, we 
may be destroyed with every kind and degree of 
torture, by the division and laceration of the va- 
rious tissues which compose our bodies. 

I have already noticed the moral character 
which a torrent derives, from the way in which 
it imitates the rage of sentient beings, by its 
noise, its gestures, and its foam ; the same tor- 
rent becomes an object of still sublimer interest, 
when we consider that it may have, — perhaps 
know that it actually has, — hurled from precipice 
to precipice the mangled limbs of some wretch, 
whom mischance or murderous design has thrust 
within the reach of its violence. 

Most of the sensible objects which are capable 
of being arranged under this head exhibit, like 
the example just adduced, signs belonging to 
other heads, but sometimes the sense of danger 
is produced by causes which are in other respects 
quite insignificant — " res agitur tenui pulmone 
rubetse." In the cauldron of the witches we find 
together such ingredients as, 

" Maw and gulf 
Of the ravening salt-sea shark, 
Root of hemlock digged i' the dark." 

The savage and furious appetite which we be- 



35 



lieve to agitate the sea-monster contribute to his 
terrible sublimity no less than the recollection 
that he is wont to appease his famine with human 
flesh ; but the root of hemlock is no unfitting 
ingredient of the same hell-broth, though we do 
not attribute its deadly effects to any passion for 
destruction, nor suppose it to watch with cruel 
delight the gradual extinction of its victims. 

All those things which are sublime in respect of 
their large dimensions, will be found, I believe, 
upon examination, to belong to this class of signs. 

The word large is always a relative term, but 
it is not always relative to the same things. An 
animal may be large with relation to others of 
the same species ; but its largeness can only be 
sublime when it is such as to indicate a degree 
of strength, which would be dangerous to man, 
if exerted against him. A space may be great 
with relation to other spaces, or even with re- 
lation to the human form ; but it can only be 
sublime when it is such as, with reference to 
our usual velocity, cannot be passed over by us 
without the lapse of such a period of time, as 
constitutes at the least a considerable portion of 
human life. The space between the sun and 
the earth is extremely sublime, but it would 
shrink in our apprehension to the familiar di- 
mensions of a ten minutes' walk, if our habitual 
progress were as rapid as that of light. When I 
speak of our usual velocity, I mean only such 

d 2 



36 

velocity as exhibits itself to the senses ; for the 
earth's circumference is not regarded as a day's 
journey, though each of us passes over that space 
every day, but as a voyage of many months, 
though few of us ever perform that voyage. 
This, I apprehend, is the sole origin of that sub- 
limity which belongs to extension abstracted from 
all the various circumstances with which it may 
be combined. These circumstances modify its 
effect upon the mind in a multitude of different 
ways. The force and direction of gravity make 
ascent and descent toilsome and perilous ; hence 
a mountain of six thousand feet is very sublime, 
a plain of the same extent is not so. A height 
very inconsiderable in other respects, if it suggest 
the notion of danger or destruction attending a 
fall from it, is more sublime than a horizontal 
space ten thousand times as long. The ocean is 
an object replete with such various and such 
complex associations, that it would require a 
very careful analysis to determine how much of 
its boundless sublimity is to be attributed to its 
magnitude. 

Subdivision IV. — Sensible Objects which re- 
semble OR ARE ANALOGOUS TO THOSE LAST 
MENTIONED. 

No detail seems necessary of this subdivision 
of Signs. They consist chiefly of artificial repre- 
sentations of the objects contained in the last 



37 

subdivision, such, for example, as a picture of a 
torrent or a wild beast. Remarks applicable to 
them will be found under other heads, and need 
not be here repeated. 

Subdivision V. — Sensible Objects which re- 
semble OR ARE ANALOGOUS TO SUBLIME OR 

Beautiful Feelings. 

The second and fourth subdivisions of Natural 
Signs consist of external objects resembling 
certain other external objects which are con- 
nected with mental feelings. But there are 
also many external objects which may be com- 
pared to the mental feelings themselves, and so 
become signs of them. These comparisons have 
place principally in respect of duration and its 
various modifications, for external objects and 
internal feelings are equally susceptible of those 
modifications. 

A thought may fade from the mind sooner 
than the colour fades from a flower. Our gar- 
ments may last longer than our resolutions. Our 
intentions may change more frequently than the 
moon. A rock and a tower are the natural 
types of a firm and constant character ; the wind 
and the weathercock are the appropriate emblems 
of the contrary disposition. 

Virgil has in this way illustrated the state of 
his hero's mind : 

" Talia per Latium : quae Laomedontius heros 
Cuncta videns, magno curarum fluctuat aestu, 



38 

Atque animum nunc hue celerein, nunc dividit iliuc, 
In partesque rapit varias perque omnia versat. 
Sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen ahenis 
Sole repercussum aut radiantis imagine lunse, 
Omnia pervolitat late loca, jam que sub auras 
Erigitur, summique ferit laquearia tecti." 

And one of the most exquisite passages in 
Shakspeare depends upon the same sort of 
analogy : 

" Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff 
That weighs upon the heart ?" 

CLASS II.— CASUAL SIGNS. 

Casual signs, that is, such objects as happen 
to have been perceived by us at the same time 
that any interesting feelings occupied our minds, 
are of such a nature that every man is necessarily 
best qualified to find out for himself the most 
striking examples of them. There are some 
species of them, however, which are constant 
and common to all mankind, though each indi- 
vidual of the species is casual and peculiar to 
some individual mind. Of this description are 
the places in which we have been affected with 
interesting feelings. To every man of reflection 
the scenes of his childhood afford an intense 
though somewhat melancholy pleasure. Gray's 



39 

ode, in which this association is beautifully illus- 
trated, is too familiar to need quotation. 

CLASS III.- CONVENTIONAL SIGNS. 

The term conventional has been generally ap- 
plied to a certain very important class of signs ; 
but it is proper to remark, that mere convention 
can never of itself make one thing the sign of 
another. In order to carry the convention into 
effect, the two things which it is intended to use 
as sign and signification must by some associating 
process be connected together in the mind. The 
associating process which is most under the do- 
minion of the will is that of habitual juxtaposi- 
tion, and it is accordingly by the habitual juxta- 
position of the sounds "house, river, tree," with 
houses, rivers, and trees, or the representations 
of them, that those sounds come to be the signs 
of the ideas they now suggest. We do not then 
agree that one thing shall be the sign of another, 
but we agree to take the measures necessary for 
making one thing the sign of another. 

Whenever we are obliged to search a dictionary 
for the meaning of a word, that word is not, 
strictly speaking, a sign, though it is made, by 
the intermediate process of looking it out, to 
answer the purpose of a sign. It is associated 
with its signification not in our minds, but in the 
pages of the dictionary. Such purely conven- 
tional terms can, however, convey a proposition 



40 

from one understanding to another, slowly in- 
deed, but still effectually. But where the object 
is to rouse the feelings, they fall very far short of 
the effect which is produced by natural or habitual 
signs. 

I have frequently imagined with what a simul- 
taneous burst of patriotic enthusiasm Nelson's 
signal at Trafalgar would have been received, if 
the whole fleet could have read at the same in- 
stant, " England expects every man to do his 
duty," as it streamed from the mast-head of the 
Victory, and thought how the effect of the great 
admiral's rhetoric must have been frittered away 
when it was necessary to search out the meaning 
of every flag in the signal-book, and to construct 
the sentence by bringing its scattered elements 
together. 

It is manifest that habitual signs, prior to their 
becoming habitual, may be either natural signs or 
wholly insignificant; and if they be natural signs, 
the things which they naturally signify may be 
either the same as, or similar to, the things they 
are made by habit to signify, or they may be 
unlike or contrary to those things. For logical 
purposes it is desirable that a system of habitual 
signs should have no meaning at all, but that 
which we designedly affix to them. Such is the 
system of algebraic signs. But, wherever the 
imagination or the feelings are to be excited, it 
is desirable that the habitual signs should be 



41 

natural signs also, either of the same things as 
they habitually signify, or of something resem- 
bling or analogous to those things. Such are the 
signs employed in hieroglyphic systems and the 
heraldic signs emblazoned on shields and banners. 
There was a great contest formerly between 
the English and French heralds, the latter con- 
tending that what the former called Lions in the 
arms of England, are in reality Leopards. I do 
not know which were in the right, but I am sure 
that the national and scientific animosity of the 
parties must have been greatly aggravated by the 
notable difference in character which popular 
opinion attributes to the animals which they re- 
spectively adopted and rejected. 

In all languages with which I have any ac- 
quaintance, many of the words which designate 
sounds are mere imitations of those sounds, but 
there are other words which by their length or 
shortness, by the openness or closeness of their 
vowels, and by the facility or difficulty with 
which they are pronounced, enable the poet or 
rhetorician to invest the ideas he wishes to ex- 
cite with the analogous qualities of the sounds 
he employs. The asperity of the obstacles which 
love will : surmount, is vividly portrayed in the 
expression, 

" Illas ducit amor trans Gargara," 
and, as Virgil might here have used a thou- 
sand other words without injury to the mere 



42 

logical sense of the passage, I think we may 
conclude that he chose the word " Gargara," 
on account of its harsh and difficult enunciation. 
The word " exaggeration," from its length and 
the loaded emphasis of its second syllable, has a 
very manifest analogy with its meaning. A flea 
and a hippopotamus could not change names with- 
out a very palpable loss of rhetorical effect. 

Although such words are valuable materials to 
those writers who address themselves to the ima- 
gination or the feelings, yet, as they are not 
numerous, the style of poets and orators would 
have been very tame and insipid, were it not that 
another and more artificial method has presented 
itself, by which one thing, without any appear- 
ance of harshness or constraint, may be invested 
with the kindred attributes of another. By con- 
stant juxtaposition sounds become the signs of 
ideas, that is, become capable of exciting those 
ideas in the mind, and consequently, however in- 
significant they maybe considered as mere sounds, 
they become, through the medium of the ideas 
they excite, without any convention or habit, 
the natural signs, as it were, of any other ideas 
which resemble or are analogous to those of 
which they become the signs by convention 
and habit. The words, Spring, Summer, Au- 
tumn, Winter, are the conventional or habitual 
signs of the four seasons of the year : consi- 
dered assigns they have no analogy at all to their 
conventional meaning, but they have acquired, 



43 

by habit, the power of exciting in our minds all 
those images and relations which constitute the 
complex notions of the several seasons, and hence 
they have become the natural signs of the youth, 
maturity, decline, and decay of sentient beings, 
and would, therefore, be understood by a person 
who had never heard them applied to such a 
purpose before. 

In this way a figurative expression, when heard 
for the first time, possesses a force and energy be- 
yond that of a mere habitual sign ; for, as several 
writers have remarked, we do not in general 
raise up in our minds the ideas which words re- 
present, but, so long as no unusual association 
startles us, we pass on satisfied with the mere 
sounds, and with the consciousness, that we have 
the power of raising the ideas at pleasure. But 
when we come to a new figurative expression, 
we find ourselves under the absolute necessity of 
raising the ideas which constitute its habitual or 
literal signification, in order to comprehend 
what it is employed to signify in the passage be- 
fore us. 

Thus when we read for the first time the fol- 
lowing passage from Samson Agonistes, 

" The sun to me is dark, 
And silent as the moon, 
When she deserts the night 
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave," 

we pass over without any hesitation the as- 



44 

sertion that the sun is dark to a blind man ; but 
when the sun is said to be silent no one can in- 
stantly acquiesce in such a proposition, and be- 
fore we can comprehend what is meant, we 
must excite in our imaginations the ideas of si- 
lence and of the sun, and by comparing those 
ideas we come to perceive that, as silence is the 
privation of objects of hearing, and the sun an 
object of sight, the word silence must here sig- 
nify an idea which bears the same relation to ob- 
jects of sight, which the idea it commonly signi- 
fies bears to sounds, in short, that silent must 
in this place mean invisible — a conclusion at 
which we never could have arrived without ex- 
amining the ideas themselves.^ 

In this manner it is that a figurative term, when 
heard for the first time, possesses the same pecu- 
liarities that belong to a term which has a natu- 
ral analogy to its meaning, when such a term is 
also heard for the first time ; viz. the peculiarity 
of being intelligible independently of habit, 
and that of being unintelligible without an effort 
of the imagination. 

When the constant use of such words has ren- 
dered the former peculiarity undiscernible, they 
cease to possess the latter. I do not mean that 

* The figure is borrowed from Dante, and it would therefore 
be possible for a person to whom the expression " Dove il sol 
tace," is familiar, to comprehend Milton's meaning without hav- 
ing recourse to the ideas, by means of the association between 
the words " silent" and " tace." 



45 

they have no longer the capacity of stimulating 
the imagination, but only that they no longer 
compel the reader to the alternative of either 
setting his imagination to work or passing over 
the passage before him without comprehending 
its meaning. This I apprehend is what Aristotle 
means when he says of metaphor in his Rhetoric 

Kal \aj3av ovk e^iv avrriv Trap aWov. The philo- 
sopher, as it seems to me, does not wish us 
to understand that there is any special impro- 
priety in borrowing a metaphor from another 
writer, but that it is not possible to borrow that 
peculiar advantage which the inventor derived 
from it. # 

* Mr. Harris, in a note to page 190 of his Philological In- 
quiries, puts a very different construction upon Aristotle's words, 
being convinced by the similarity which is certainly remarkable 
in a passage from the same author's Poetics, that the meaning 
must be the same in both places. The passage in the Poetics is as 
follows : 70 c"e /jLeyicrrov to /j,ETa<popnc6v elvaf fiovov yap tovto, 
ovte nap' aWov iaTi \aj3elv, Evtyv'iag te arjfx&ov fori* to yap ev 
fjL£ra(j)EpEiv, to ofioiov QeioqeIv iaTi. (Poetic, see 37.) But admitting 
that the similarity of the expression to that in the Rhetoric proves 
identity of meaning, still it seems tome much less improbable that 
Trap' aWov Xa/3f7y tovto (sc. to jjiETatyopiKor eIvcu) should mean 
to borrow metaphors from other writers, which I take to be the 
obvious sense of the passage in the Rhetoric, than that \a/3E~iv 
TavT-qp (sc. fXETatyopdv) Trap' aWov, should mean to acquire 
(that is, to acquire by instruction from others) the being power- 
ful in metaphor, which is the sense Mr. Harris puts upon the 
passage in the Poetics. The remainder of the sentence is not 
at all injured by the sense for which I contend ; for, whether 
Aristotle meant that metaphors cannot be borrowed, but must be 



46 



But although metaphors lose, as soon as they 
are no longer new, the superiority which they 
originally possessed over mere habitual signs in 
respect to the power of raising images in the 
mind, still, like all other signs which represent 
ideas having a moral character, they become as- 
sociated with that character in such a way, that 
they excite emotions in the mind even when they 
raise no images, or, at least, when we are not 
conscious that any images are raised. Sounds 
become magnetised, as it were, by the habitual 
contact of pathetic ideas, and acquire to them- 
selves that power of moving the passions which 
at first they could exercise only by means of 
ideas. The mere sound of the word " spring" 
inspires " vernal delight" — the mere sound of 
the word summer sends " a summer feeling to 
the heart." Multitudes of such words will occur 
to the memory of every reader, (death, pes- 
tilence, liberty, revenge, Marathon, Thermopylae, 
may serve as examples,) and by the judicious 
use of them a writer may accompany those 
ideas, which form the thread of his discourse, 
with a continuous strain of emotion not very 
* different from those strains which are produced 
by the succession of musical tones. Milton has 

invented, or that the power of writing metaphorically cannot be 
acquired by instruction, but must be the native product of the 
mind, it was equally proper for him to add that the same is a 
mark of uvitius. 



47 

done this with most extraordinary success in the 
description he gives of the principal personages 
of Satan's army. 

It is possible, therefore, by means of a meta- 
phor, however trite, provided it have not lost its 
literal signification, to invest one thing with the 
moral attributes of another. Cicero gives an 
example of this and of its sophistical effect in 
reasoning, in his fragment De Republica. " Sed 
more quodam fallimur ita disputando, cum enim 
optumates appellantur, nihil potest videri prsesta- 
bilius. Quid enim optumo melius cogitari potest?'' 
It would be manifestly desirable for a rhetorician 
when he is calling a tyrannical oligarchy optu- 
mates, that the metaphor should be trite, that 
the audience should institute no comparison 
between the literal and the figurative meaning. 
The more familiar the figurative application of 
the term, the more certain is the rhetorician of 
the advantage to be derived from the moral asso- 
ciations which the word has acquired from its 
literal meaning. Of course, the very same prin- 
ciple which would induce a defender of oligarchy 
to use the term optumates, would induce an op- 
poser of that form of government to abstain 
from using it. But it sometimes happens that 
the only name of the thing we wish to express 
is a term transferred figuratively from something 
else. Theocritus describes most vividly the 



48 

brawny muscular form and gigantic strength of 
Amycus : 

lirrjdEa <T ea<paipiOTO TrtXwpia, Kal ttXcltv vCjtov, 
2aj0fu aidapeia, otyvpifkaroc, ola KoXoaffoe' 
'Ev t)e fiveg (TTSpeoiori fipa.yj.OGLV cucpov vir (vjuov 
"Eora<rav, 7]vre 7rerpOL 6Xooirpo\oi, ovgte KvXivduv 
Xeifxappovg TrorafxoQ fieydXaig Trepiilecre divaig' 

Every thing here contributes to the general effect 
but the unlucky word fimg ; unlucky it certainly 
is, bringing to mind, as it does, that muscles 
derived their name from the likeness to such a 
little, weak, contemptible animal as a mouse. 

The association between sounds and the moral 
character of the ideas they represent is fre- 
quently so strong, that the sound itself seems to 
be changed. 

" Cum bello puero prseconeui qui videt esse." 

" Atque hinc undantem bello magnumque fluentem 
Nilum." 

One who reads these two passages is hardly 
sensible, that in both of them he has uttered the 
same sound. To a man thinking, in Latin, the 
word " carmen" appears a sound of great beauty. 
To a man thinking, in English, the same sound 
appears mean and uninteresting. The word 
" thunder" seems to agree so well in character 
with its meaning, that I was at first doubtful 
whether it is applicable to my present pur- 
pose, but when I recollect that the word " un- 



49 

der" has essentially the same sound, and that in 
such expressions as " an undertone" — " to un- 
dermine" — " underhand," it is so far from hav- 
ing a sonorous character, that it seems to shrink 
from the perception of the senses, I cannot but 
believe that the word " thunder," if stripped of 
its associations, would not be peculiarly fit 

M To bellow through the vast and boundless deep." 

I have now classified and described, though in 
a very cursory way, the external objects which 
excite the emotions of Sublimity and Beauty, ac- 
cording to the different ways in which they be- 
come fitted for that purpose ; but the slender out- 
line of the subject, which is all I profess to deli- 
neate, would not be complete without some ex- 
amination of those objects, according to the 
classification which has been given to them in re- 
spect of the different organs by which they are 
perceived. 

It is by the sense of touch only that we at 
once acquire the notion of externality, and per- 
ceive external things. By the eye we perceive 
nothing but light, with its varieties of colour and 
intensity. Experience, however, very soon 
teaches us that many of these varieties represent 
the varieties belonging to objects of touch, and, 
as soon as this connexion between the two senses 
is once firmly established in our minds, we trust 
to our eyes to give us information in all ordinary 

E 



50 

cases, concerning the distances and figures of 
externa] objects ; and the touch, which origi- 
nally explained to us the meaning of the modifi- 
cations of light, is neglected, like the Dictionary 
of a language with which it has made us familiar. 
Indeed, from the length of time which is re- 
quired to examine a complicated, or a large ob- 
ject by the touch, and from the consequent diffi- 
culty of retaining distinct notions of the parts, 
so as to construct a complete notion of a whole, 
that sense is a very inconvenient instrument for 
such a purpose, when compared with the sight 
which can take in, as it were simultaneously, all 
the parts of a large and complicated object, and 
so enable us to apprehend those relations of each 
part to the others, which constitute a whole. 
The result is, that the visible qualities of objects, 
so explained by their tangible qualities, have ac- 
quired a marked pre-eminence above the quali- 
ties perceived by all the other senses. The 
visible qualities are, in fact, considered as 
the external objects themselves, while the quali- 
ties perceived by the other senses are considered 
as the qualities only of external objects. When 
we speak of a rose, a harp, or a pine-apple, we 
think of certain collections of visible qualities ; 
when we speak of the smell of a rose, the sound 
of a harp, the taste of a pine-apple, we think of 
something superadded to those collections of 
visible qualities. If we met with individuals 



51 

having the visible qualities of a rose, a harp, or 
a pine-apple, bat wanting their respective smell, 
sound, and taste, we should undoubtedly call 
them respectively an inodorous rose, a silent 
harp, a tasteless pine-apple. Perception is a 
term commonly applied to all the senses ; but 
when we say, " I perceive a rose, a harp, a 
pine-apple," we are understood to mean that we 
perceive them by the organ of sight ; and, if we 
wish to indicate perception by any other organ 
of sense, it is necessary to mention the quality 
by which that organ is affected, thus — " I per- 
ceive the smell of a rose," — " I perceive the 
sound of a harp" — " I perceive the taste of a 
pine-apple." 

Since, then, it is by the eye that we perceive 
all those complex things which most interest us, 
a man, a tree, a house, an army, a forest, a city, 
it is easy to understand how so many more, and 
so much more complex, emotions of sublimity 
and beauty have become associated with visible 
qualities than with any other kind of sensible 
qualities. It is undoubtedly true, however, that 
the qualities perceived by the other senses are 
capable of combining with emotions, (musical 
sounds do so in a most uncommon degree,) and 
although it was a received doctrine before the 
days of Plato, that the eye and the ear are the 
only channels through which external objects 
affect the mind with beauty, zXejzto yap, he 

E 2 



52 
makes Socrates say, J><; tyu) fxvr]fxi)q *x w > ro ^ T e ^ vai 

KaXov to ri$v ov nav, aXX b av St oipttog /cat aKor)Q ij, 

yet this doctrine is not true in its utmost rigour. 

Mr. Burke argues that bitter tastes are sub- 
lime, because such expressions as " a cup of 
bitterness" — " to drain the bitter cup of fortune/' 
" the bitter apples of Sodom," are suitable to a 
sublime description ; and I think the force of his 
argument must be admitted, though my own per- 
sonal experience of bitter tastes would not have 
led me to invent such metaphors. 

The same author quotes two passages from 
Virgil, which he thinks prove the sublimity of 
smells. 

" At Rex sollicitus monstris oracnla Fauni 
Fatidici genitoris adit, lucosque sub alta 
Consulit Albunea, nemorum quae maxima sacro 
Fonte sonat scevumque exhalat opaca Mepbitim." 

" Spelunca alta fuit vastoque immanis hiatu 
Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro, nemorumque tenebris 
Quam super baud ullse poterant impune volantes 
Tendere iter pennis : talis sese balitus atris 
Faucibus emvndens supera ad convexa ferebat." 

I acknowledge the sublime effect of these 
passages, but to me it seems quite clear that it 
is not sublimity excited by any smell, or the 
image of any smell. I acknowledge Mephitis to 
be sublime, but I am utterly ignorant, and so, 
I believe, are most of my readers, of the smell 
of Mephitis : if I chanced to inhale it I should 



53 

not recognise it as Mephitis, consequently there 
can be no feeling of any sort, whether sublime or 
not, associated in my mind with that smell ; and 
the same may be said of that ' halitus* which is so 
powerfully described in the second quotation. 

For my own part, I recollect no smell that 
excites in my mind the emotion of sublimity ex- 
cept that peculiar one which is characteristic of 
the ocean. Observe the very striking effect which 
Homer produces by describing the amphibious 
herds of Proteus in the Odyssey, as 

Uticpov d-rroTTvelovaaL d\6g ttoXv^evQeoq odfitju. 

This line does not, like those from Virgil, de- 
scribe the effects of an unknown odour, but pow- 
erfully recalls to our imagination one which can 
hardly be forgotten by those who have had expe- 
rience of it, and by so doing, throws a marine 
character over the whole scene, more rapidly and 
vividly than could have been done even by an 
image of some visible thing. 

Adam Smith has remarked that there is a sixth 
sense generally confounded with that of touch, 
but really very distinct from it. By this sense 
we do not acquire the notion of resistance or ex- 
ternality, but perceive such qualities as heat and 
cold. The quality of heat, from being the sign 
of animal life, at least that sort of animal life 
with which we are most familiar, and the qua- 
lity of cold from being the sign of its negation, 
are capable of exciting the emotions of sublimi- 



54 

ty and beauty. The expression Scucpva Oep/Jia is 
very beautiful, indicating-, as it does, the living 
and sentient source from which the fountain of 
sorrow springs. Homer has been lavish in his 
descriptions of wounds, but I think the two that 
strike me as most terrible are those by which 
Echeclus is slain in the 20th Iliad, and Pedeeus 
in the 5th. 

'o <T , Ayrfvopog vldv' E^eicXov 
Meffffrjv KciKKetyaXriv £,i(pei rfkacre KU)7rt]EVTi. 
Hav (T vTredepfidvOr] tytyog atfiart. 

Toy fxsy <&vXei()r)g dovpacXyrdg, (yyvBev eXdiov, 
Bsj3\r]K£L Ke(j)a\rjg Kara Iv'iov ofy'i dovpi. 
'AvriKpv 3' aV odovrag viro yXuJtrcrav rdfie ^aXKog, 
"Hpnre ft sv Kovir), -fyvypov h" eXe ^clXkov odovatv. 

No one will deny, I believe, that the fearful 
energy of these passages would have been much 
weakened if the scalding of the sword and the 
coldness of the spear-head had been omitted. 

I remarked, in speaking of the primary sources 
of the sublime and beautiful, viz. human feel- 
ings and passions, that the negation of them is 
also a source of the sublime and beautiful to those 
who know by experience what those feelings and 
passions are, and I illustrated the remark by the 
description which Lucretius gives of the moral 
condition of the gods according to the system of 
Epicurus. The same remark is equally applica- 
ble to those secondary sources of the sublime 
and beautiful, which I have been now examining, 
and the same poet, describing the physical con- 



55 



dition of the gods, will again furnish an equally 

apt example : 

" Apparet divom numen, sedesque quietse 
Quas neque concutiunt venti, neque nubila nimbis 
Aspergunt, neque nix acri concreta pruina 
Cana cadens violat." 

The extraordinary pre-eminence which visible 
objects unquestionably possess over all other ob- 
jects of sense in exciting the emotions of Subli- 
mity and Beauty, very naturally gave rise to the 
opinion that Sublimity and Beauty, or a consi- 
derable portion of them at least, are the mere 
organic effects of external objects upon the eye ; 
and, before Bishop Berkeley had taught mankind 
how much of what they think they see is really 
seen with their eyes, and how much of it is to be 
attributed to the co-operation of their hands and 
their imagination, it was not so easy as it now 
is to show that such an opinion is utterly ground- 
less. 

If any part of the sublimity and beauty attri- 
buted to external objects, be really the organic 
effect of those objects on the eye, by abstracting 
all that we have learnt concerning them by other 
means, we shall divest this sublimity and beauty 
of all adventitious circumstances, and apprehend 
those powerful charms which communicate such 
a fascinating influence to the combinations into 
which they enter, in all their native purity. But 
the result of this operation., since that admirable 
analysis which has taught us to distinguish be- 



56 

tween the original and the acquired perceptions 
of sight, is a few spots of colour, having no con- 
nexion with external objects, and therefore sig- 
nificant of nothing, and it does seem quite evi- 
dent that if these spots of colour never became 
significant of any thing, the eyes of all human 
beings would behold them with the same glassy 
indifference as the eye of an infant by whom 
their significance has not been discovered. It is 
not worth while, however, with reference to the 
subject of this essay, to dispute that unmeaning 
spots of colour may afford some trifling organic 
pleasure. The question is, can that organic 
pleasure, if any there be, take its place in a 
logical classification, as a species of the sublime 
or beautiful ? — or, to state the question in parti- 
cular, can the pleasure of perceiving a blueish 
speck be properly called by the same general name 
as the emotion with which we contemplate the 
immense and magnificent ocean, from which our 
adventurous race receives such splendid rewards 
and such tremendous afflictions ? 

It is true that the late Mr. Stewart, in his 
ingenious Essay on the Beautiful, seems to con- 
sider this question as quite unimportant, for, after 
having censured some speculations of Diderot, 
he observes, that they "have evidently originated 
in a prejudice which has descended to modern 
times from the scholastic ages, that when a word 
admits of a variety of significations, these different 
significations must be all species of the same 



57 

genus, and must consequently include some es- 
sential idea common to every individual to which 
the general term can be applied :" and then he 
cites the following passage, where, as he says, 
" this prejudice is assumed as an indisputable 
maxim :" — " Beau est un terme que nous appli- 
quons a une infinite d'etres. Mais, quelque dif- 
ference quil y ait entre ces etres, il faut ou que 
nous fassions une fausse application du terme 
beau, ou qu'il y ait dans tous ces etres une 
qualite dont le terme beau soit le signe." Not- 
withstanding Mr. Stewart's high authority, I 
must continue to receive what is here laid down 
as an indisputable maxim. If, indeed, Diderot 
had stated the latter branch of his alternative as 
a distinct assertion, it would have been open to 
objection, but it seems to me that whoever denies 
the alternative which he has stated attacks the 
whole doctrine of classification, and shakes, as 
far as in him lies, the superstructure of logic 
which rests upon no other foundation. 

If, then, I were convinced that the terms 
sublimity and beauty, or either of them, had been 
applied to the mere organic effect of visible ob- 
jects, I should have no hesitation in saying that 
a false application of the terms had been made, 
and consequently that in philosophical language 
that signification of them ought to be rejected. 
But the truth is, that no such application of the 
terms is ever made in popular language. Those 



58 



who invented languages never instituted any 
comparison between the simple organic effect of 
mere colour and the complicated effect of colours 
when they have become the signs of external 
things. No man thinks, when he is standing on 
the sea shore, of the blueish speck, which is all 
that he sees — the real object of vision is unknown 
to the vulgar, and forgotten by the philosopher 
unless in the act of philosophising. We may be 
quite sure that no epithet was ever given in 
popular language to the mere organic pleasure 
of vision, since it is only by a most refined ana- 
lysis that we have discovered what the real object 
is. The experience of this object which we had 
in our infancy, has been totally obliterated from 
the memory, and the connexion which has been 
formed between it and the objects of touch 
exhibits the strongest instance of association with 
which the study of mind makes us acquainted. 
Men not only suppose they see what they really 
do not see, but also frequently suppose they do 
not see that which they really do, The sides 
of solid rectangles when seen in perspective are 
seen as trapeziums, but a man who knows nothing 
of perspective supposes that he sees rectangles. 
The legs of a chair standing on the floor are 
seen to be of unequal length, but such a man 
thinks he sees four legs of equal length. Desire 
him to copy these objects on paper, he produces 
a rectangle and four equal legs. He knows, 



59 

indeed, when he has drawn them that the repre- 
sentation is incorrect, but he does not know in 
what respect it is incorrect, and even though you 
tell him that his error consists in copying what 
he believes to exist instead of what he sees, still 
he cannot correct his drawing, for in truth he is 
ignorant what it is he sees. 

The analysis by which the original perceptions 
of sight are distinguished from those which are 
acquired, proves sufficiently that sublimity and 
beauty are not the organic effects of visible ob- 
jects ; and although it does not prove that they 
are the effect of the association of visible objects 
with emotions and passions, yet it removes entirely 
the great difficulty which stands in the way of 
that conclusion, and which causes the arguments 
in favour of it to be received at first with distrust. 
The difficulty I speak of arises from the rapidity 
and certainty with which the emotions of sub- 
limity and beauty follow upon the perception of 
visible objects, whence has sprung the opinion 
that they are visible qualities. But if we have 
decisive proof that men suppose they see things 
which are not visible, even so as to substitute 
those invisible things for what they really do see, 
the conclusion that sublimity and beauty (though 
men think they perceive them by the eye) are 
qualities of mental feelings can no longer be of 
such a startling nature as to create a prejudice 
against the arguments by which it is established. 



60 

I have said that it is not worth while to dis- 
pute, with reference to the subject of this Essay, 
whether there are or are not any organic plea- 
sures of the eye ; but when we consider how 
frequently and how vehemently our feelings and 
passions are affected through that organ, it is 
certainly curious to observe how totally unfit 
the objects which affect it, that is, mere colours, 
are to produce any such effects independently of 
association. We cannot indeed prove this by a 
perfectly accurate experiment, because we can- 
not strip colour entirely of all associations, but 
we may approximate nearly to that point. Fa- 
ther Castel, a Frenchman, proceeding upon the 
supposed analogy between the prismatic colours 
and the notes of the diatonic scale, constructed 
an instrument which was to exhibit tunes to the 
eye, hoping to stir the spirits of his spectators 
through that organ, as the musician stirs those of 
his audience through the ear. But inasmuch as 
the materials he combined were signs of nothing, 
the combination itself was a sign of nothing but 
the misdirected ingenuity of the inventor, and 
the attempt failed entirely, as might have been 
predicted by any one conversant with the theory 
applicable to it. It is indeed possible to exhibit 
rhythm to the eye, as is done in dancing; but the 
mind judges very imperfectly of rhythm exhibited 
to that organ, therefore the rhythm of dancing is 
almost imperceptible, unless it is marked by the 



61 

accompaniment of music. The case must have 
been the same with the rhythm of Father Castel's 
visible tunes. 

I observed in the beginning of this Essay that 
I do not entirely agree with Mr. Alison, and 
the author of the article " Beauty," in the Sup- 
plement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica ; and I 
shall conclude by indicating the particulars, in 
which I venture to differ from such eminent 
authorities. 

Mr. Alison makes sublimity and beauty to 
consist in such trains of ideas of emotion, as 
possess a predominant character of cheerfulness 
or melancholy ; for example : — whereas to me it 
appears that such trains, in respect of sublimity 
and beauty, differ only in degree from the ideas 
which compose them, and I should say that their 
sublimity and beauty depend upon their being 
trains, only in the same sense in which I should 
say that the value of a string of pearls depends 
upon its being a string. In my opinion each 
idea in such a train is sublime or beautiful, 
though less so than the whole train, as every 
pearl is valuable, though less so than the whole 
string. 

Mr. Alison denies, indeed, sublimity and 
beauty to objects of sense ; but he seems to deny 
them equally to mental emotions, unless they 
happen to form part of a train, In his opinion 



62 



the feeling which possessed the mind of Regulus, 
when he is said, 

" pudicse conjugis osculum, 



Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor, 
Ab se removisse et virilem 
Torvus humi posuisse vultum," 

considered by itself, and apart from all associ- 
ations, has no more title to be called sublime, 
than the countenance and gesture by which that 
feeling was manifested. 

To such an opinion I cannot subscribe, and I 
think that some indistinctness has arisen from its 
introduction into the very eloquent and ingeni- 
ous work which has thrown so much light on 
this subject. 

The author of the article " Beauty" agrees 
with Mr. Alison in denying sublimity and beauty 
to sensible objects ; and also, it seems, in de- 
nying them to mental affections, considered in 
themselves. But he does not, like Mr. Alison, 
place them in trains of ideas of a peculiar sort. 
According to this author, sublimity and beauty 
are the shadows or images of mental affections, 
reflected from objects of sense. Thus the af- 
fection of a woman for her husband is not beau- 
tiful in itself, but it is beautiful when suggested 
to the mind by the ivy clinging round an oak. 
In other cases, beauty is reflected pity, reflected 



63 



resignation, reflected grief, &c. The beauty in 
all these cases differs from that feeling of which 
it is the reflection, as the light of the moon dif- 
fers from that of the sun ; and it would be as 
improper to call any of those feelings beautiful, 
as it would be to call the solar beams chaste, 
cold, and silvery. 

This acute writer does, indeed, speak, in 
the early part of his Essay, of the beauty of 
things intellectual, and totally segregated from 
matter, but I am not able to reconcile these 
expressions with that part of his doctrine of 
which I have just given a very concise and per- 
haps imperfect account, and which appears to me 
not to have been originally an essential element 
of his theory, but to have suggested itself as an 
answer to the objections which he anticipated. 

It is to be observed that the theory of the last- 
mentioned author, assuming it to give a perfectly 
accurate account of the facts, does not amount to 
any explanation of them. 

If a certain wine is found to be noxious, and 
a chemist shows by analysis that it contains sugar 
of lead, which was before known to be noxious, 
he is properly said to explain the fact that the 
wine is noxious. He thereby reduces what ap- 
peared to be two facts to one. But when a 
chemist shows that common salt is a combination 
of soda and muriatic acid, neither of which have 
any saline qualities, though he proves a very 



64 

important and curious fact, he gives no expla- 
nation — he does not reduce two facts to one. 

The doctrine that Sublimity and Beauty are 
qualities of Mental Emotions, and that Mental 
Emotions become in various ways most intimately 
connected with Sensible Objects, is strictly an ex- 
planation of the fact that Sublimity and Beauty 
frequently appear to be qualities of Sensible Ob- 
jects. 



THE BRITISH CODE OF DUEL 



A REFERENCE TO THE 



LAWS OF HONOUR, 



CHARACTER OF GENTLEMAN. 



THE BRITISH CODE OF DUEL, &c. 



If a law- giver were to decree that whenever a 
theft was committed, and a complaint made to 
the proper authority, the robber and the party 
robbed should draw lots, and that he who drew 
the shortest should be hanged, the means would 
not appear very happily adapted to the end of 
repressing theft. Yet the principle of this me- 
thod of decision is the very one on which the 
ancient trial by battle, long considered a very 
admirable institution, must in reality have de- 
pended, and on which the modern duel, still 
considered a very admirable institution, must 
actually depend. The above method, however, 
of repressing theft has this advantage over the 
battle and the duel, that it is governed purely by 

F 2 



68 

chance, which in one particular at least resem- 
bles justice, viz. in being blind, that is in having" 
no pre-conceived bias towards either of the liti- 
gant parties, whereas the two latter institutions 
depend, in a great measure, upon skill, which 
goes a great way towards securing success to him 
who happens to possess it. But although this 
principle of chance was that which in reality 
determined the result in the battle and the duel, 
excepting in so far as the equity of its decisions 
was disturbed by the unequal skill of the parties, 
yet we must do our ancestors the justice to re- 
mark, that they erected the institution upon a 
foundation, the solidity of which was never sus- 
pected in their days, and which, if solid, would 
not only justify the institution, but would show 
that no other method of deciding disputes between 
man and man ought ever to have been adopted. 

Our ancestors thought, and the opinion seems 
to be very universal and natural, an idolon tribus, 
according to Lord Bacon's classification, that 
those apparently irregular phenomena, which an 
ample and scientific experience has now shown 
to be only particular cases of invariable laws, 
were the effects of particular interpositions of the 
Deity; and that as the Deity must love virtue, 
and hate vice, he would on every occasion take 
care to adapt the succession of physical events 
according to the moral exigencies of the case. 



69 

This was unquestionably the original ground on 
which men believed that knotty questions of fact 
might be conveniently cut by the sword, instead 
of being slowly and painfully solved by the ordi- 
nary operations of judicature. This ground, 
however, has slipped away from under our feet, 
and if the practice of duelling is to stand at all, 
some other must be found on which it may be 
rested. 

Accordingly we no longer hear, among those 
who profess to reason on the subject, of washing 
out the imputation of dishonour in the blood of 
the slanderer, but we are told that the reciprocal 
right to challenge and the liability to be chal- 
lenged, are the sufficient reason of all the polish 
and decorum which are to be found in our man- 
ners. We remember to have read at school that 

" Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes 



Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros :" 

but at the time we no more suspected than the 
benighted heathen who wrote the lines, that to 
snuff a candle at twelve paces was one of those 
ingenuous arts to which such good effects are to 
be attributed ; and even now, after all our expe- 
rience of the world, we feel ourselves compelled 
to dissent from that opinion, and we propose to 
lay before our readers the reasons of our dissent. 



70 

We consider the question as now ripe for dis- 
cussion : as long as we are told that the honour 
of a gentleman is in his own keeping, and can 
only be vindicated by his own right hand, &c. &c. 
our inability to apprehend the sense of the propo- 
sitions prevents us from grappling with them. 
But when we hear of means and an end, we begin 
to scent our quarry; means and an end are the 
very things we delight in. 

Refinement of manners, then, being the end, 
the question is, whether the custom of duelling 
be the best means of attaining it. 

The circumstance that most forcibly strikes us 
at first sight, in considering this custom, is, that 
it is not an artificial device, by which the natural 
disposition of men is to be moulded to beneficial 
purposes, but, pro tanto, a recourse to a savage 
state, it looks like a rude and desert spot in the 
very midst of the garden of civilization, where 

" Inter nitentia culta 
Infelix lolium, et steriles dominantur avemc." 

It involves a confession that there are certain 
injuries for which the wisdom of civilized men is 
incapable of finding an adequate remedy, and 
which must, therefore, be left to the operation of 
those vindictive feelings which nature has im- 
planted in the hearts of the human race. All 



71 

that has been done by design and reflection has 
been, to impose a check, to hang- a weight upon 
the springs, whose elasticity puts the system in 
action. For there is no doubt but that the savage 
man would maim or slay whomsoever should 
affront him, without thinking it necessary to 
expose himself to the hazard of the same cala- 
mities ; whereas, under the system of duelling, 
no man is entitled to what is called satisfaction, 
without tendering the same satisfaction (which 
we believe, however, is not then called by the 
same name) to his adversary. It cannot fairly 
be denied that this is a check, and a very power- 
ful one, but of what nature ? The framers of 
the mutiny act have determined, that if a plaintiff 
bring an action for any thing done under the 
authority of that act, and fail to recover, he shall 
pay treble costs to the defendant. The object 
of this is, of course, to separate those cases, where 
the plaintiff has a just cause of complaint, from 
those in which he has not; to leave him at liberty 
to pursue his course with regard to the first set 
of cases, and to deter him from pursuing it, with 
regard to the second set. But, suppose the pro- 
vision had been, that the plaintiff should be ex- 
posed to an even chance of paying treble the 
costs to the defendant, whether he made out his 
case or not, it is manifest that such an indiscri- 
minate restriction could only be defended on the 



72 

ground that the right to sue generally produced 
more evil than good, and consequently that an 
absolute prohibition would be still better than a 
partial restriction. So it is with the check upon 
the privilege of shooting at men ; let the insult 
be never so grievous and severe and public, he 
who receives it shall have no chance of punishing 
the offender unless he submits himself to the 
same chance of punishment. We who think it 
inexpedient that men should be allowed to fire 
with ball at those who have hurt their feelings, 
of course approve of the check, and only find 
fault with it, because it is not powerful enough 
to extinguish the practice altogether ; but it is 
perfectly obvious, that whoever does approve of 
the check, cannot also approve of that which is 
to be checked, indiscriminately checked, be it 
observed, not checked in its worst part and un- 
checked in its best. Yet obvious as it is, we 
doubt whether among the admirers of the duel, 
any one can be found so daringly consistent, as 
to defend the unrestrained privilege of maiming 
and murdering. The cause of this inconsistency 
is not difficult to discover ; the restricted privi- 
lege is veiled by the prejudice belonging to what- 
ever has been long established, the unrestricted 
privilege has no such misty disguise to conceal its 
natural enormity. It should, of course, be borne 
in mind, that our arguments have reference to 



73 

the principles on which the duel is now sup- 
ported, not to those on which it was originally 
instituted. 

But now let us examine upon what pretence 
it is, that we in the nineteenth century are driven 
back, as far as regards the subject of insults, to 
the savage state, and are obliged to allow every 
man to protect himself with his own hand. It 
happens, unfortunately, that there is not extant 
any systematic defence of the duel. The surface 
of the subject has been skimmed and grazed by 
the writers in the periodical papers, but nothing 
like analysis, so far as we have seen, has ever 
been applied to it : all that can be done, there- 
fore, is to furnish an answer to such desultory 
arguments as we have met with in the above- 
mentioned works or in conversation, and to such 
as have suggested themselves, as in any degree 
plausible to our own minds. 

It is said, in the first place, that insults ought 
to be repressed, and that the institution, or cus- 
tom rather, of duelling, is a method, and the 
only method, of repressing them. 

The advocates for duelling seem to admit, 
that if insults could be subjected to the same 
course of adjudication as other crimes* are sub- 

* We have considered an insult as a species of crime, which 
though not consonant to common phraseology, is perfectly con- 
sistent with logical precision, for that an insult is an action 
productive of evil, and, as such ought to be repressed, is a pro- 



74 

jected to, the extraordinary and anomalous me- 
thod of punishing* them by duel would be super- 
fluous ; and indeed it is too clear to admit of 
dispute, that if an insult could be punished as a 
forgery is punished, there could be no reason 
why an insult should also be punished by duel, 
which would not also prove that a forgery ought 
to be so punished. 

If, then, it can be shown, that all the argu- 
ments which tend to prove that an insult is an 
improper subject for ordinary criminal jurispru- 
dence, tend to prove, a fortiori, that it is an im- 
proper subject for a duel, it should seem that a 
complete answer is given to all such arguments. 

Now, the reason usually given why an insult 
is an improper subject for criminal procedure is 
this — an insult, it is said, is, in a great measure, 
incapable of definition and of proof; which cir- 
cumstances would make it so difficult for the tri- 
bunal to which the question is referred to de- 
termine, whether any insult has been offered, and 
if any, of what degree, that its decisions would, 
by their absurdity and iniquity, produce more 
mischief than they would remedy. 

Now, these reasons, we say, apply a fortiori 
against the system of duelling; for by that system 
the determination of the question, has any insult 
been offered, and if any, of what degree, is in- 

position that will be admitted as well by tbe defenders as the 
impugners of duelling. 



75 



deed taken away from the cognizance of the tri- 
bunal said to be incompetent to determine it, but 
for the purpose of referring it to the person 
whom all mankind, from the first dawn of le- 
gislation, have declared it to be the most unfit to 
decide it, namely, the person who asserts him- 
self to be insulted. 

Why is it that, when a robbery is supposed to 
have been committed, we do not allow the ac- 
cuser to pronounce the guilt of the accused ? 
Because he being the most interested in the 
question, is of all men the most unfit to decide 
it, even though, as in this case of a robbery, it 
should be a fact about which no mistake is likely 
to exist in the mind of the party ; much more, 
then, is a man incompetent to decide whether he 
has been so insulted as to justify him in chal- 
lenging the party accused, because an insult is 
incomparably less definite in its nature than a 
robbery, and because the judgment of the accu- 
ser is inevitably disturbed by the irritation of his 
feelings on the one hand, and by the apprehen- 
sion of the danger to which he must expose him- 
self on the other. 

It is then quite idle and beside the purpose to 
insist that, if insults were subjected to criminal 
procedure, the innocent would so often be pu- 
nished, the guilty would so often escape, or be 
punished too much or too little, that it is better 
to leave these actions unrepressed than to endea- 



76 

vour to repress them in this way ; it is quite 
idle, we say, thus to insist, unless the advocate 
for the duel were prepared further to show, 
what no one has ever attempted, that by means 
of duelling, fewer innocent persons would be 
punished, fewer guilty persons would escape, or 
be punished too much or too little. 

In our experience we have generally remarked, 
that when the controversy has reached this 
point, the ground is shifted, and (it being im- 
possible to deny the defects of the duelling sys- 
tem) it is said, that, with all its defects, it still is 
better to submit to it, than to suffer insults to go 
unpunished. 

What is this but to run upon the other horn 
of the dilemma ? 

The dilemma, when stated in form, is this : 
if duelling produces a balance of evil, it ought 
to be abolished ; if duelling produces a balance 
of good, criminal procedure, as has been shown, 
would produce a still greater balance of good ; 
therefore still duelling ought to be abolished. 
This is the dilemma, and we should like to see 
in what way perverted ingenuity can escape 
from it. 

Moreover, besides those arguments which 
apply in a stronger degree to the extraordinary, 
and in a weaker degree to the ordinary method 
of punishment, there are some which apply in 
the strongest degree to the extraordinary, and 






77 

to the ordinary not at all. These reasons are 
drawn from the nature of the punishment. 

It is very obvious, that, supposing* the abstract 
offence to be once defined, and the particular 
offence to be once proved, it is not difficult so 
to manage matters in a court of justice, as that 
the punishment shall fall upon the offender, and 
not upon some other person, and shall fall upon 
him with a degree of severity proportioned to 
the nature of the offence. Whereas in the sys- 
tem of duelling-, when the existence of a corpus 
delicti has been established by the verdict or 
the temperate and impartial tribunal above-men- 
tioned, viz. the accuser himself, we are not 
much nearer the object in view, that is, the 
adequate punishment of the offender, than before. 
No doubt, to those who admire the constitution 
of the tribunal, the manner in which the punish- 
ment is adapted to the offence, must be a new 
and very copious source of admiration : to others 
it may, perhaps, seem that a punishment varying 
from zero through all the gradations of personal 
injury up to death, not, be it observed, according 
to the nature of the crime, but according to 
extraneous circumstances which bear not the re- 
motest relation thereto, and falling, in at least 
one out of two cases, not upon the criminal, but 
the party aggrieved, is no very happy effort of 
human wisdom. 

To be serious, is it not manifest that if a de- 



78 

scription of this institution were to be found in 
a grave work on jurisprudence, it could only 
escape from contempt, by exciting- the indignation 
of the reader ? Yet this compound of absurdity, 
iniquity, and atrocity, by favour of such sounding 
names as honour and chivalry, passes with those 
who will not analyze their opinions, for one of 
the bulwarks of civilized society. 

From what has been said, we hope it suffi- 
ciently appears that if any balance of good above 
evil is produced by duelling, that very circum- 
stance proves irresistibly that a still greater 
balance must needs be produced by punishment 
in the ordinary course of criminal jurisprudence, 
so that there can be no necessity for having 
recourse to this anomalous mode of retribution. 
But we think it will not be difficult to show that 
no balance of good, but, on the contrary, a 
balance of evil, is produced by duelling, and, 
consequently, that it ought to be abolished, even 
though no other means could be devised for 
putting a stop to the actions which it professes to 
repress. 

In estimating the evil effects of duelling, one 
important consideration is commonly left entirely 
out of the account, namely, the tendency which 
it has to aggravate the very evils it is intended 
to repress : for the quantity of pain which one 
man can inflict upon another by an insult where 
duelling is not permitted, is in reality very 






79 

minute compared with the quantity of pain which 
one man can inflict upon another by an insult where 
duelling- is established. Let any one calmly 
consider the misery a man may be subjected to 
by any given insult (by being called a liar, for 
example) taken by itself, and then let him con- 
trast it with that which a man may be made to 
undergo by the same insult aggravated by the 
consequences which are attached to it by the 
system of duelling. To any man the consequence 
may be death, to the man who conscientiously 
shrinks from the wanton shedding of human 
blood, the intolerable burthen of ignominy or of 
remorse. The man who is constitutionally timid, 
the weakness of whose individual character most 
especially requires the protection of the public, 
is delivered up a prey to his oppressor ; while 
the man of ferocious courage, and skill at his 
weapon, is invested with a power over the des- 
tinies of his fellow-creatures, similar to that 
which the man of physical strength enjoys in a 
savage life, and which none could enjoy in 
civilized life if the custom of duelling did not 
prevail. 

The result of this comparison may be made 
still more plainly apparent, by instituting it in a 
specific case, of which actual experience may be 
had in the present state of society. 

Contrast, we say to the admirer of the duel, 
contrast the pain of receiving an insult from a 



80 

clergyman with the pain of receiving one from a 
military officer. In the former case, you need 
not challenge the wrong doer, and if you do, 
he need not fight : in the latter case, you 
must challenge the wrong doer, and he must 
fight, — so says the code of honour. In the first 
case, then, \ou have the evil alone, in the 
second, the evil with its remedy — which is the 
worst ? 

Here, again, we are come to a dilemma ; for 
though it be perfectly clear what reply a candid 
and reasonable man must give to our question, 
yet, for the purposes of the argument, it matters 
not in the least which way it is answered. If 
you say the evil alone is w T orse than the evil 
together with its remedy, then you cannot also 
say that a duel is such an object of terror that 
men are thereby deterred from insulting their 
fellows, and you give up the only ground on 
which the defence of duelling rests. If you say 
the evil together with its remedy is worse than 
the evil alone, you admit the conclusion we are 
now contending for, namely, that duelling ag- 
gravates the very evils it is intended to repress. 

To avoid the possibility of mistake, we wish 
it to be understood that we do not mean to deny, 
that by the custom of duelling a certain motive 
is presented to abstain from insult, which, but 
for that custom, would not exist : what we have 
been endeavouring to show is, that, on the other 



81 

hand, the evil of being insulted is multiplied 
manifold ; whence it follows, that the motives to 
inflict insult are also multiplied. 

This inference, if it be not already perfectly 
evident, may be made so by the following illus- 
tration : — 

It is not uncommon to hear the unnecessary 
trouble and expense of law proceedings defended 
on the ground that they have a tendency to dis- 
courage vexatious litigation, and certainly they 
do present one motive to abstain from vexatious 
litigation which would not otherwise exist. But, 
on the other hand, they enormously increase the 
motives which stimulate to such litigation, for if 
the trouble and expense of a law-suit were no- 
thing, the motives to inflict a vexatious law-suit 
would be nothing : as you increase the one, you 
necessarily increase the other. In like manner, 
if the pain of being insulted were nothing, the 
motives to inflict insult would be nothing, and 
as you increase the one you necessarily increase 
the other. 

But, further, though it has been admitted that 
the fear of a challenge does operate as a re- 
straining motive, it can be proved that it only 
does so by disturbing the effect of a much more 
constant, efficacious, and innocuous motive. 
For there is in civilized society a force which, 
when undisturbed by prejudices, is fully compe- 
tent to produce, in the greatest degree, that ob- 

G 



82 

ject which the duel is vainly intended to pro- 
duce ; to which force also, be it observed, the 
duel owes all the efficacy which it can be sup- 
posed to possess ; we mean, of course, the force 
of public opinion. It is the terror of general 
disapprobation which really creates whatever of 
refinement is to be found in our manners, not 
the terror of wounds or death, for these the 
offender can avoid if he pleases, but he can only 
avoid them by encountering the more dreadful 
punishment of ignominy, which few indeed can 
bring themselves to endure. Can it be doubted, 
that if the punishment of ignominy fell at once 
upon the man who offers an insult, (as, but for 
the practice of duelling, it most assuredly would 
fall,) its efficacy would be far greater in repress- 
ing insults, than when it falls only (as it does 
under the duelling system) upon him who offers 
an insult, and refuses to give satisfaction if re- 
quired, and upon him who receives an insult 
and fails to demand satisfaction. All the in- 
stances in which rudeness is now restrained by 
the fear of a duel are so many proofs of the om- 
nipotence of public opinion ; for what else com- 
pels a man to the alternative of curbing his inso- 
lence, or exposing his life ? 

It may make this matter clearer to consider a 
hypothetical case. 

Suppose, then, two nations having both reached 
such a degree of refinement, that the behaviour 






83 



of a man who should call another liar would be 
generally considered very offensive. Suppose, 
further, that the custom of duelling did not exist 
in the one, and did exist in the other. If a man 
felt that he could endure ignominy, he might 
give the lie without restraint in either society. 
But if, which is the far more common case, he 
felt that he could not endure ignominy, then in 
the first society he must of necessity abstain from 
giving the lie, for there is nothing in such a so- 
ciety which can prevent the public disapproba- 
tion from falling upon him if he does not abstain, 
just as it falls in the actual state of society in 
England, upon all those whose offences are not 
punishable by duel. But in the second society, 
the man who does not encounter ignominy may 
nevertheless, gratify the brutal insolence of his 
disposition, provided he dares to encounter per- 
sonal danger ; he has even a great chance of 
escaping both ignominy and danger, if he choose 
well the object of his attack. Therefore, as the 
efficacy of punishment is, cceteris paribus, in pro- 
portion to its certainty, it seems impossible to 
escape from the conclusion, that there would be 
fewer instances of the lie given in the first so- 
ciety than in the last. It is, indeed, difficult to 
conceive how the character of a bully, in all its 
shades and degrees, would be an object of am- 
bition to any one, in a country where the law is 
too strong to suffer actual assaults to be com- 

g 2 



84 

mitted with impunity, where public opinion is 
powerful, and duelling not permitted ; but, where 
duelling- is in full vigour, it is very easy to un- 
derstand that the bully may not only enjoy the 
delight of vulgar applause, but the advantages of 
real power. 

This view of the subject appears to us to ex- 
hibit so distinctly, that the efficacy of duelling 
(abstracting from the mischiefs it produces 
directly) is nothing more than the weakened 
and diverted efficacy of public opinion, that at 
the risk of being tedious we shall repeat the 
argument over again in a general form, thus : — 

If a man fears not the disapprobation of the 
society in which he lives, the custom of duelling 
cannot prevent him from insulting whomsoever 
he pleases, for there is no process, save the 
public censure, by which he can be compelled to 
fight. 

If a man does fear the disapprobation of the 
society in which he lives, he would be more 
effectually restrained from insulting others if 
that disapprobation were the direct and in- 
evitable consequence of such a proceeding, than 
when it is only the remote and uncertain con- 
sequence. 

The disapprobation of the society is only the 
remote and uncertain consequence of offering an 
insult under the system of duelling, for the of- 
fender may at his pleasure commute it into per- 






85 

sonal danger, and has some chance of escaping 
it without any commutation, and even throwing 
it upon the injured party. 

If the system of duelling did not exist, the 
disapprobation of the society would be the direct 
and inevitable consequence of offering an insult ; 
for it is necessarily admitted by our opponents, 
that an insult is a hurtful action, and we see 
that upon all those hurtful actions to which the 
duel is not applied, the disapprobation of the 
society does fall with undivided force ; it falls 
too even upon those hurtful actions to which the 
duel is in general applied, when they are per- 
formed by a class of persons privileged from 
challenge. Thus, if a churchman is guilty of a 
gross insult, the weight of the public censure 
falls with undivided force upon him, his cha- 
racter suffers severely, and by the frequent repe- 
tition of such conduct would be utterly de- 
stroyed — while that of the injured party is held 
in the same estimation as it was before the affront. 
It seems impossible to assign any reason why the 
same punishment should not fall upon every one 
who offends in the same way, if the public cen- 
sure were not diverted from its proper object by 
the institution of the duel. 

Let us imagine that a Chinese, who had been 
some time resident in this country, were thus to 
address an Englishman : — 



86 

" I have not failed to remark, since I came to 
England, that many gross actions and expres- 
sions, which in my own country are common 
among- all ranks, are here confined to the lowest 
orders, and I am informed that any person be- 
longing to the superior classes of society, who 
should so far forget his good breeding as to be 
guilty of such actions or expressions, would im- 
mediately forfeit his right to be admitted into 
the company of his equals. Yet I was present 
some time ago at a party, where, in the heat of a 
dispute, one person gave another very plainly to 
understand, that he doubted the truth of an as- 
sertion which the latter had made. I could per- 
ceive by the altered countenance of the person 
so addressed, that a great breach of good man- 
ners had been committed, and indeed the cheer- 
fulness of the whole company was in a great 
measure subdued ; and notwithstanding the 
efforts made by the master of the house, was 
never effectually revived during the evening. 
Yet to my great astonishment, I have since 
found that the culprit is received in the same 
houses, and treated with the same respect as be- 
fore. This anomaly has puzzled me extremely, 
and I should be much obliged to you to explain 
it to me." 

The difficulty of the Chinese would, as it ap- 
pears to us, be most natural and reasonable, the 



87 

Englishman would, indeed, be able to explain 
it by unfolding to him the system of duelling and 
its consequences, — that is, by pointing out to him 
that the disapprobation which would naturally 
have fallen upon the offender, was diverted by 
this institution, and discharged upon the person 
who had failed to resent and to avenge the 
affront ; in no other way would it be possible to 
account for so extravagant an aberration of pub- 
lic censure. 

It has been said for duelling, as it has been 
said for prize-fighting, and as it might be said, 
with equal force, for every other violation of 
good order, that if you close up this vent for the 
angry passions of mankind, another will soon be 
forced open, and that instead of duels you will 
have assassinations. To refute this supposition, 
an appeal may be confidently made to actual ex- 
perience. The two great nations of antiquity 
were unacquainted with this boasted institution, 
yet their history furnishes no ground whatever 
for supposing that they were addicted to the 
practice of private assassination. The duellist, 
however, will object to these examples as inad- 
missible for the purpose ; for the Greeks and 
Romans, he will say, were such coarse and 
vulgar fellows, so insensible to the point of 
honour, that they suffered themselves to be 
called rogue, thief, and liar, without ever show- 
ing, or even feeling, the resentment which be- 



88 

comes a gentleman ; but we must not thence 
infer, that in these more enlightened and refined 
times, when honour is dearer than life, and must 
not be sullied even by the breath of suspicion, 
that the higher orders of society will consent to 
forego the privilege of mutual slaughter in some 
shape or other. To such a reasoner we hesitate 
not to reply, that if these ferocious and vindictive 
passions which can only be slaked in human 
blood, — which can only be restrained from using 
the knife of the assassin, by being indulged with 
the pistol of the duellist y — if these passions, we 
say, are to be considered as the characteristics of 
an enlightened and refined state of society, it 
becomes the duty of every friend to morality and 
good order, to pray for the return of darkness 
and barbarism. 

There is not, however, any necessity to refer 
to the history of remote times in order to prove 
this point, for there is actually existing before our 
eyes a body of men to whose irascible passions 
the safety valve of the duel has never been ap- 
plied, who yet have never been accused of a pro- 
pensity to assassination ; and as this body of men 
is distinguished from the rest of the upper classes, 
rather by a greater than by a less degree of po- 
liteness, it furnishes at the same time a practical 
proof of the proposition which we have already 
demonstrated in another way, — namely, the pro- 
position that duelling tends rather to retard than 



89 

to advance the refinement of manners. The 
body we speak of is, of course, the clergy of 
England as they now exist : whatever faults may 
have been laid to their charge, certainly neither 
a predilection for murder, nor a want of exterior 
propriety, is among the number. Now how 
does this happen ? What possible reason can be 
assigned, why a churchman should not give vent 
to angry and contemptuous feelings, by angry 
and contemptuous gestures and expressions, as 
frequently as a layman ? a man in holy orders is 
still a man ; he does not change his nature with 
the colour of his coat ; nor is there any ground 
for supposing that young gentlemen are moved 
to become candidates for ordination, because 
they feel that the acrid and caustic ingredients of 
human nature are wanting in their idiosyncrasy : 
on the contrary, it will not be disputed that peo- 
ple go into the church, as into any other pro- 
fession, because they suppose that they have a 
fair prospect of advancing their fortunes in that 
direction. To us the reason is manifest. If a 
priest indulge in abusive epithets, or otherwise 
conduct himself offensively, he gains nothing but 
the momentary gratification of passion, with the 
certainty of a most severe retribution. Whereas 
a layman in the same circumstances not only as- 
suages his wrath, but acquires, moreover, the 
reputation of a certain reckless gallantry, which 



90 

varnishes over and conceals from observation 
and from censure, the insolence and brutality of 
his conduct. It is of no avail to say, that society 
requires a more strict observation of decorum in 
the ministers of religion than in the rest of the 
community ; for the question is not how much 
society requires, but how it can enforce what it 
does require. And if, when the effect of its 
censures is not impeded by the duel, it can en- 
force the greater degree of propriety, it seems 
no strained inference to conclude, that if the 
same advantage was afforded by the universal 
suppression of duelling, it would be able to en- 
force, by the same means, that less degree of 
propriety which is expected from the rest of the 
upper classes. 

These are the reasons which have appeared to 
us conclusive of the question, so conclusive in- 
deed, so much stronger than the imbecility of 
the subject seems to demand, that we have 
several times doubted, in the course of the dis- 
cussion, whether we were not wasting efforts 
which ought rather to be directed against more 
plausible errors. But it is to be remembered, 
that however poorly the custom we are attacking 
may be fortified with reasons, it is fenced round 
on every side with a triple row of prejudices. 
And this must be our excuse to our readers (for 
we feel that some excuse may be expected) for 






91 

having* crushed with the force of argument a 
system, which when exposed to the light, crum- 
bles into dust by the spontaneous operation of its 
own rottenness. 



THE END. 



LONDON: 

IBOTSON AND PALMER, PH1NTEIIS, SAVOY STREET. STRAND. 



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